Clareification

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Clareification is the weekly student newsletter of Clare College, Cambridge, a college of Cambridge University. One of the things that distinguished Clare as a particularly friendly and informal college was the staff's toleration of the publication prior to the 2007 controversy. Every week in term, students mocked Cambridge traditions, satirised the events of the week, reported on silly student antics and spread college gossip (in the infamous Clareifornication column).

Clareification evolved gradually in the mid-late 1990s as a newsletter of the Union of Clare Students. Named after a bad pun on the college's name, it was padded out with comedy articles, gradually turning into a weekly 8-page comedy paper with only the occasional piece of real news. Spoof formattings of real-life newspapers and magazines were common. It was widely read by Clare students on Friday lunchtimes with fish and chips, but academic opinion of it was sharply divided. It has been described by the Master of Clare, Professor Anthony Badger, as "an unholy cross between The Sun on a bad day, and The Daily Sport," whilst an older description attributed to a fellow of the college held it to be "a squalid, pornographic scandal rag run off on a photocopier."

In 2005, it won the 'Best College Paper' award in The Cambridge Student.

[edit] Controversy

In 2007, in a guest-edited edition devoted to religious satire, entitled Crucification, the magazine re-printed one of the Danish Muhammad cartoons which provoked an international incident when they were originally published 15 months earlier.

The guest editor was taken into hiding due to the threat of violent reprisals [1]. The college's senior tutor, Dr Patricia Fara, issued a statement saying, "The college finds the publication and the views expressed abhorrent." The college called a Court of Discipline to judge the student and suspended the newletter's funding. The Cambridge Evening News described the issue as "racist" [2], in an article in which an "insider" suggested that the magazine might constitute "racial incitement". Two students were subsequently interviewed under caution by police in connection with the issue. [3]

Following the incident, the Union of Clare Students published independently two further issues, predominantly devoted to satirising the coverage of the controversy. These issues were edited anonymously.

The editorship of Clareification is subject to annual election. No candidates stood for the 2007-08 editorship. The newsletter's future remains uncertain.