Racism in UCD paper

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday January 30, 2003 14:57 by Eoin O'M

This morning's edition of the UCD paper The University Observer contains the following 'light-hearted' voxpop question:

"Which ethnic minority do you hate most and why?"

In response six named students from the esteemed faculties of Engineering, Science and Ag Science contribute wisdoms like "The Afghans. Because the Americans should have done a better job taking them out over there" and "The Paki's because they smell different".

In the interests of balance the editor saw it fit to print a disclaimer denying all responsibility for the offensive views of the "the student body of UCD". In a subsequent telephone call a subeditor said that an apology was being drafted and they had stated that they "approached this in a light-hearted manner".

He did not, however, understand the main point that the context for such a question to be asked nor the responsibility of the 'journalist' to not publish these views are also relevant.

Their email address is
university.observer@ucd.ie

The NCCRI's complaints email address is nccri@eircom.net

I have the full text if anyone wants it.