Alert NTU prevents SDP exploitation

NTU students were going to report the visit of Dr Chee Soon Juan and members of the SDP in their campus newspaper, The Nanyang Chronicles. However, NTU President Su Guaning removed the report just one day before publication.

According to Associate Professor Benjamin Detenber, Chair of NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), which runs both campus media, the university’s position is that the story was killed because “there was a feeling of concern over the use of student media to publicise and promote the unsolicited views of an uninvited person to the campus.”

Fortunate for NTU's alertness, the free advertisement of SDP was prevented. Here are some reasons that NTU is justified for their actions:

• SDP did not seek approval of NTU for its visit. Technically, SDP trespassed NTU campus.
• Student media should not be exploited as publicity for political parties, SDP in this case.
• The approval of publicising the SDP article would mean that the student media can report on any agents or company representatives that came uninvited to NTU campus and grant them free publicity as well.
• Student media should be objective in nature.
• The Nanyang Chronicles aims to provide "timely campus news and information as well as being the voice of the campus population." Therefore, it was right of NTU to publish the visit of former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam instead. He attended a conferment ceremony in NTU, which is drew more crowd and is of more significance to the campus population than the handful of students who stayed around the SDP.
  

Source:
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/09/ntu-censors-campus-news-coverage-of-chee-soon-juan-visit/#comment-21748