Salient is the weekly students' magazine of the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association (VUWSA) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Salient was established in 1938[1] and originally published in newspaper format, but has lately become a magazine. Salient's style and editorial position can change from year to year due to changes in editors. However, the magazine has generally taken a left-wing stance.
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The Salient editor-in-chief is an employee of VUWSA operating under a charter that grants editorial independence. The editor is appointed and employed under a fixed term contract that covers roughly the beginning to end of the academic year. Previous involvement with the magazine is not a prerequisite for applicants but every editor from at least 1996 to 2011 has had some role at Salient prior to their editorship.
The editors for 2011 are Uther Dean and Elle Hunt.
Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association, (ASPA), which has had a press gallery journalist in the New Zealand House of Representatives since 2005. As Salient is based in Wellington, the ASPA press gallery associate also doubles-up as the news editor for Salient.
Salient news is predominately focused on student issues, the students' association and the university itself. However, Salient has also reported on national items outside of "student" issues. There was significant coverage of the Iraq invasion in 2003 for instance.
The News Editor in 2011 is Stella Blake-Kelly.
Salient has participated in the ASPA Student Media Awards since their inception in 2003. The magazine dominated the first two years of the awards winning amongst other categories Best Publication in 2003 and 2004. Otago's Critic is generally seen as Salient's strongest competition and in 2005 turned the tables, sweeping a number of categories including Best Publication with Salient coming second. Critic won Best Publication again in 2006 and Salient came second.
In 2009 Salient won the award for Best Publication. Salient dominated these awards with five first places and eight other placings.[2]
In September 2005, the Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University obtained a court injunction to prevent an issue of Salient from being distributed - thought to be the first time in the magazine's history this has happened. The issue of Salient contained information obtained from leaked University Council documents with details about possible university fee increases of 5 to 10 percent. The controversy made national media, with several items on the television news. The university failed to realise that information was put on to the ASPA newswire, hence the information was published in several other student magazines and on the internet. Distribution of Salient was eventually allowed, four days late after Salient and the university reached an out-of-court settlement. The documents were returned to the university, reportedly with pictures of male genitalia drawn over them.
In April 2006, Salient published a short piece which put "Chinese", along with animals like poisonous snakes and penguins, in a list of "top five species we should be wary of". The supposed "joke" upset the Chinese community and caused huge protests from both Chinese students and the Chinese Embassy. Accused of being blatantly racist, editor James Robinson apologised, saying "It was a ridiculous jab that was honestly so stupid I didn't even think twice about it," However, he argued people who were offended had misinterpreted it , "We put 'the Chinese' between 'penguins' and 'very poisonous snakes' on the list, and people somehow took it seriously." He also defended his right to publish it, saying "It's not hate speech or inciting violence against the Chinese race. It would be a dangerous precedent to come out and say, 'Sorry, we were totally out of our minds to print such a thing'."
In July and August 2007, Lindsay Perigo wrote and Steve Nicoll published two articles titled Death to Islamofascism in Salient. He denounced Islam to be stinking and stupid[2] and in the second article infamously suggested "Some good, robust sodomy as the Muslims bend towards Mecca would go some way towards attenuating both their anal-retentiveness and their murderous savagery".[3]
In May 2008 Salient published a feature article concerning the rise of China as a new world superpower. To promote this article the cover that week depicted a naked, yet to be identified, salient staffer draped in a Chinese flag, with Hu Jintao's face photoshopped onto their own. The cover invoked a strong reaction from the Wellington Chinese community, with Pro-China students removing the magazine from distribution at the University's Karori Campus. Following this disruption, the Chinese students association of Victoria University presented a petition of 113 signatures calling for an apology. To date, Salient has not apologised.
Responses from the Chinese community were mixed, with some commentators mentioning that this controversial cover (in conjunction with the 2006 satirical comparison of Chinese to dangerous animals) resulted in a possible ban on Salient writers traveling to China.
Salient has been a home to a number of comics and cartoons and they traditionally have their place on the last page of the magazine. Past comics such as ASCII and Grant Buist's Brunswick have won critical praise and or awards, with ASCII winning an ASPA award in 2005.
Partial list of comics from recent years: