After McGill students voted to renew a compulsory fee supporting a campus newspaper, a leading Jewish-affairs lobbying organization says changes at the paper are still needed.
The left-leaning McGill Daily has enforced an editorial line for over a year that prohibits articles "espousing a Zionist worldview." The paper says this is in an effort to provide a safe editorial space for Palestinian students on campus. Critics, however, say it amounts to a worrying purity test on the university's large Jewish student population.
Rabbi Reuben Poupko, the Co-Chair of the Quebec chapter of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, says that the stance of the paper, which collects an annual fee of several dollars from the vast majority of McGill's 40,000 students, amounts to "[an encroachment] on the most elemental of journalistic ethics."
In an online referendum last week to give the Daily permission to renegotiate its funding agreement with the McGill administration, 64.2% of students voted "Yes", while 35.8% voted "No".
In upcoming negotiations between the paper's parent organization, the Daily Publications Society, and the McGill administration, Poupko says the university should "ensure that continued compulsory funding of The McGill Daily requires its full compliance with universally-recognized journalistic ethics, such as the Quebec Press Council’s Ethics Guide."
The McGill Daily receives around $300,000 in student fees every year under its current funding agreement.