KINDLY, PLEASE MOVE

YORK IS UNDOUBTEDLY a very aesthetically pleasing city and most parts of our campus look beautiful.

However, many of the town centre’s streets and the bridges as well as certain paths within the University share a common vice: narrowness.

I’m always a pretty busy person, so I often tend to travel in a rush. On a few occasions, I have admittedly even cycled from the YUSU offices located within James college to a meeting in Vanburgh or Derwent, purely for the purposes of saving whatever time I can.

If I could choose to harness a superpower, it would be teleportation, as travelling usually feels inconvenient.

Therefore, while I’m rushing around in town or on campus, one thing that (perhaps irrationally) the posts and stories on my feed portrayed sorrow about the news. The media coverage from outlets like the BBC produced the biggest issue. Their ceaseless broadcasting of the Queen and the royal mourning protocol was continuously prioritised over everything else happening. Incredibly, 79 of BBC News’ 81 posts on Instagram between 8th and 19th September concentrated on the topic of the Queen’s death. responsibility to at least acknowledge a variety of outlooks and relay what a significant number of people think in an informative manner; even during a historical moment. A true commitment to neutrality and indeed free speech would not constantly ignore alternative widespread views and emotions that existed alongside the apparently dominant ones. tum alongside returning students and social media posts inevitably formed a key part of that.

Purportedly impartial media channels such as the BBC should always report on the full picture of current affairs, yet the coverage only catered for a specific (albeit justifiable) agenda. I’m not saying that the media ought to have promulgated the more anti-royalist sentiments completely equally, but a larger sense of balance was needed instead of leaving out different news stories and selectively picking opinions from the supposedly represented population.

Mainstream media carry a

The sheer strength and extent of the extremely public mourning protocols across social media and broadcasts ensured that they were unavoidable. It’s fair to say that the Queen’s death didn’t directly affect my job within a Students’ Union while preparing for the start of term, but external networks warned us to not post stuff relating to the Queen that expressed anything apart from solidarity and the University sent advice about restricting our communications (whatever the topic) across the mourning period.

I felt quite conflicted; in a personal capacity, I resisted the slight temptation to (respectfully) air my Republican-orientated thoughts because I was told that I would potentially be targeted by the media, which admittedly scared me slightly.

Professionally, the notion that we could not proceed with our lives as normal due to the passing away of one person caused annoyance, as I was building up momen- annoys me the most is slow walkers! I speak here about deliberately slow walkers, where they have control over their own speed. For example this might include people in groups, on their phone, taking in the sights, lost in their thoughts, attempting some swagger - all justifiable, but fairly frustrating. I consequently would like to share one simple request, which is please move to or stay at the side!

A lot of the cohort we are employed to represent don’t actively support or identify with the monarchy, so the question I pondered before begrudgingly reducing my public communications was: would I have still been helping people and performing my job properly by doing that?

Whilst the University’s communications guidance risked infringing on my autonomy with free speech, I observed a clear example of repression when the University decided to delete comments on their post regarding Queen Elizebeth II’s death, which violated students’ freedom of expression and ultimately illustrated the enforcement of a dominant narrative that various organisations tried to ensure everyone was (at least publicly) on board with.

The royal family debate exemplified that we live in a nation divided on many subjects, but I ask you: if the impartial media ignore particular aspects of a situation and refuse to educate the population in a universal way, then how can culture wars ever stop and people increasingly accept divergent views?

Some streets, paths and bridges are just too narrow for you to be walking leisurely next to others in a horizontal line, especially during peak hours, so single file is the way to go. I doubt anyone will change the essential architecture of the city or campus soon, meaning that your placement while walking is of more importance than you imagine! Perhaps I should leave an increased amount of time for get- ting from place to place.

I accept that, though my schedule can make this tough, and the main issue is even when I’m not in a rush, I don’t like travelling slowly. My suggestion here is let’s find a compromise, and help each other out - I calm down when possible, you move, everybody becomes happier in York!