The Guardian
Margaret Holborn from the Guardian Education Centre met with the group on Tuesday 6th April. She gave us an overview of the paper’s history from its origins in Manchester and the founding of the Scott Trust that gives the paper its trademark freedom, to its modern day form taking us through an average day at the paper.
Following this we were joined by Brian Whitaker, former Middle East editor for the paper. He gave us a fascinating insight into freedom of expression in reference to his book on homosexuality in the Middle East. He commented that contrary to what we might conceive as the principal deterrent and what might be most shocking in the West with the death penalty in Saudi Arabia many people commented that this was the least of their worries in comparison to family and local community censure.
Thanks to Margaret and Brian for giving up their time and giving us such an interesting insight into their work and the work of the Guardian.
English PEN
INDEX on Censorship
The BBC
The BBFC
Mark Piper gave the group a great insight into the work of the BBFC past and present on Friday 9th April. A look through the history of the organisation’s role over the years and their decision making procedures lead to interesting discussions about what should and shouldn’t be shown to audiences of different ages and in some cases to any audience at all. The 43 grounds for deletion used when the ‘C’ of BBFC still stood for ‘censors’ instead of ‘certification’ as it does now, were cause for a few laughs as well as a good illustration of the changing attitudes towards censorship over the past century.
Now the BBFC runs on clear and published guidelines. Everyone had a chance to see how these were put into action using examples from shows like Seinfeld, DVD extras, the film Eastern Promises and more. We could all see how having guidelines helped hugely in ensuring that the decisions were transparent and found it hard to believe that for much of its modern day incarnation they had done without published guidelines. Debates over controversial recent decisions like ‘The Dark Knight’ or more recently ‘Kick-Ass’ are sure to appear somewhere in the blogs so do keep reading.
Parliament
In the afternoon of Friday 9th April, the whole group participated in a tour of the Palace of Westminster by arrangement of Eastside’s local MP Meg Hillier. It was an eye-opening experience for everyone, looking at the place where the people’s representatives (elected and unelected, the subject of some discussion!) exercise the freedom of speech we hope is the bedrock of our society. It was interesting to learn the exemptions for libel in the house; to note the marked difference between the ornate, unelected Lords’ chamber compared with the relatively sober surroundings in the Commons’; to ask about the super-injunction recently enforced over the Trafigura oil-trading company concerns, which had been discussed at the Guardian earlier in the week; to be in the room where only the day before the controversially swift Digital Economy Bill had been put through in the wash-up affecting the BBFC visited earlier that morning. For many it was the first time entering the seat of decision-making in the country and everyone had strong opinions they wanted to share afterwards.
Arvon and The Literary Consultancy
Monday 12th took the group back to the Free Word Centre for the last time in the project, meeting with Rebecca Swift of the Literary Consultancy and Ruth Borthwick of Arvon. By now completely in the swing of the visits and saturated with thoughts about the discussions, the group quickly latched onto the ideas thrown up by looking at these organisations. From Arvon we came away with the idea that perhaps the most potent way in which we deny people freedom of speech in this country is by denying young people sufficient opportunities to engage with language and thereby give them the tools to express themselves confidently and effectively. From the Literary Consultancy we came to examine how the selectiveness of the publishing industry and the norms within it might in itself be a form of censorship, by not sufficiently understanding marginal writers and therefore not recognising their potential. The discussions ran on, with everyone enjoying themselves a lot and firing us up for our second visit of the day to Google.
Met by a member of the Google Communications Team, Oliver Rickman, the group were shown around the Google offices. Everyone was impressed by the relaxed atmosphere and friendly, generous work environment (you mean even the ice-creams are free?). We stationed ourselves in an atrium filled with palm trees and deck chairs for our discussions. Many participants had come along with burning questions about the role Google had played in China, the role they will be playing in the upcoming general election by the sponsored links on their searches, many expected to come away vindicated in thinking that a big corporation could never be seen in a positive light. However, by a show of hands it seems the arguments put forward by Google for their decision making procedure were very convincing. It remains to be seen what goes on the blogs about these trips.
