Established in 1930, Canta is the official magazine of the University of Canterbury Students' Association (UCSA) of the University of Canterbury. It is freely available around campus every Wednesday during term time. It is usually 32 pages long and A4 in page size.
Famous former editors include Denis Glover.
There are a variety of sections which usually appear every week:
Canta is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).
Contents |
In 1996 the Canta editors Steven Fleming and Creon Upton were removed after publishing a range of controversial articles including a Mel Brooks Nazi parody, a column purporting to have been written by Michael Jackson, a mock Tintin comic strip, and a list of student criminal offenders (a hoax). The editors claimed at the time that their sacking was more a result of their poor relationship with the university’s student executive council than anything else. An employment tribunal later found in favour of the sacked editors resulting in a substantial payout from the student executive.
Canta was again involved in controversy following the publishing of an article entitled "The Completely Unofficial Top 13 Ways of Cheating" in the issue preceding midterm exams in June, 2007. New Zealand newspaper The Press and internet news service stuff published an article which got repeated nationwide and on the evening news on channel 3.[2] The university announced it was introducing a random seating policy in exams following the attention. Canterbury University Students' Association president Belinda Bundy said the article was not meant to be taken seriously. "I think we only ever saw it as a humorous thing, It was just a light-hearted reaction to all the cheating issues that have been raised recently."
In 2008, a weekly column entitled "Trust Deborah - She's Always Right" surfaced. This column features a weekly rant against different groups of people, ranging from "fat" girls (females with a BMI>22, according to the column writer) and Christians. In issue 21 of 2008, Deborah again made headlines by suggesting that Christians "have the mental capacity of a Down's syndrome-sufferer with a head injury", are "mentally defective" and declaring that she wishes that all Christians would die. Her articles have generated considerable "Hate Mail", published in every issue of 2009. This has had little effect on changing Canta Magazine policy.