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| Photographs by Duncan Brown |
Around 3000 students and staff assembled outside the Hetherington building on University Avenue, itself occupied by anti-cuts protesters on the 1st of February, before marching to the heart of the university cloisters where management were meeting to discuss a series of departmental closures and cutbacks in an attempt to save £35 million over the next five years. There were the usual placards from various political parties, but these were vastly outnumbered by homemade banners such as those from the threatened modern language department calling on the university not to "turn their 'Bach' on German" while another simply stated "don't trample on sociology." Another handmade sign harked back to the slogan of Paris students in 1968, "Soyez réaliste, demandez l'impossible" (Be realistic, demand the impossible) while others thanked Steven Fry for his twitter comments yesterday that the proposed cuts were "sad."
At a rally after the march Sandra White, SNP regional member of the Scottish Parliament, called the proposed cuts "disgraceful," while Patrick Harvie, Green Party MSP for Glasgow stated that students had been "lied to" by politicians. The biggest cheer of the day however was reserved for Megan, a student from the threatened department of Nursing studies, who told the crowd that there were many other nursing students who would have attended the march but could not as "they were already out on the wards saving lives."
As the rally ended one member of university staff remarked that the demonstration could be a "game changer" for the management's attitude to cuts. One young demonstrator told me "after Egypt no-one can say that demonstrations can never change anything."
Duncan Brown's full set of photograph's of today's march and rally can be found Here
12 comments:
Its Hetherington, not Heatherington.
It's been occupied since the 1st Feb, not last week.
How do you know what the expectations of Uni management were re the turn out? Did you ask them?
Hello Anon
Thanks for that contribution, will fix the spelling and date.
On your second question, yes.
all the best
James
"On your second question, yes."
Awesome! You should mention this in the article - that is news to me.
Thank you :-)
Given that you are anon "anon" I'm sure you appreciate the journalistic imperative of keeping sources confidential.
Best Regards
James
Ah, of course I do :-)
The comment's there anyway :-)
eh? it's hardly keeping your sources confidential if you then go on to mention them in the comments. and surely there's a difference between protecting confidentiality and lending credibility to your article by citing a source. the way it's written it kind of looks like it might've just been made up (or more likely plucked from another report). i'm not saying for a minute that it was, but that's how it may be perceived. it's all too common now for news reports and blogs to be republished and uncited (i.e. plagiarised) in this modrin world of twitter, blogs etc. i'm sure your sheridan blog probably experienced this first hand on a daily basis.
nothing personal, just a pet hate of mine when blogs don't state clearly where their info has come from. (i'm not the OP btw)
Hello Chumpo. The quote is directly as stated from a member of staff. I appreciate feedback of course but I am a little unsure of what the specific problem is with that part of the piece. If you could clarify I'd be grateful
all the best
James
i don't really have a problem with the post or any part of it, was more just a general point/ramble about blogs/journalism. just feel that if a writer is going to go to the effort of researching for his work, he should tell us about it! credit where it's due, lends credibility, prevents (to an extent) plagiarism. i just like to know as a reader where information comes from (is it primary? etc). makes it easier to read between the lines - so much stuff (that is, a vast majority) on any subject is regurgitated/rehashed from other sources. the classic example is "the bbc has learned..."
just a pet peeve. i might not have even noticed had someone else not flagged it up and given me the brief opportunity to vent. as i said, nothing personal, just a general ramble.
No worries Chumpo and I agree with many if your concerns. All i can say is that in my work I would hope to stick to a standard that if I do not personally know for sure a fact or a quote is correct I would indicate that. I stand by what I report as true.
Best Regards
James
James
redchumpo has just articulated what I was saying.
I was not asking you to name your source, but I agree with him that your blog would come over better if you said:
"a member of staff"; or "a member of court" or whatever the designation was of the person who "said that the turnout exceeded ..."
Do you see what we are saying? It adds credibility to your article.
Now, I'd happily allow you to say that the amount of people on the rally far exceeded the expectations of ordinary members of staff (of whom I am one). Likewise, having talked to the student organisers, I know it far exceeded their expectations.
We're not criticising you, at all - at least, I'm not - just sayin' - you could add credibility to your blog - which is already good, and does not contain a lot of inaccuracies which other reports have done :-)
Good points and well made.
I've amended the post accordingly
all the best
James
Nice :-)
Thanks for commenting on the diversity of the placards as well.
We (me and the other staff I was with) loved that. They were so funny.
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