Tufts is a very small place. This makes the role of a student journalist at this school a difficult one.
From one side, you are being told by journalism professionals that your job is just as vital as a paid journalist, and you must accept the full weight of responsibility on your shoulders. On the other side, you have your friends, the people you live with, who you are being asked to cover with an uncritical eye. Sounds hard, eh?
For an outgoing Tufts Daily reporter, it seems like nearly every story you cover touches upon someone you know or a group you are involved with. Not to mention that all your friends in other groups are usually trying to convince you to write a story about them and help them get some name recognition.
This happens in the real world too. Journalists often find their best stories through friendships with people in official positions. A reporter who meets a bureaucrat at a party may find an e-mail months later with a lead to a story, all because the bureaucrat felt that the reporter was someone he liked and could trust.
But, like I said, Tufts is a small place, which means that almost all stories have something to do with someone you know or a group you signed up with at one time.
I have witnessed Daily reporters personify what I would term heroic efforts to cover issues and events that directly affect people they know with an objective eye. If we attempted to remove everyone with a conflict of interest to a story, we would never have any reporters.
The Daily - like every other newspaper - works on trust. I trust each and every reporter I work with in every department to be honest in their writing; the moment I did not, I would no longer be able to assign them stories.
So where is the line drawn? When is a student too involved to cover a story? The Daily cannot prevent its staff from being involved with the myriad of groups available on campus. What we can do is see if their involvement would mean that they would not act in the interest of truth and fact. But preventing a black student from covering a Black Solidarity Day rally would be just as silly as telling a student who participates in charity work that he or she could not cover a Leonard Carmichael Society event. We must recognize that we are one community, and that the Daily's reporters are a part of that, not detached.
Obviously, some instances are avoided. Editors will avoid assigning a hard-core Republican or Democrat a political story. A member of ECO's executive board will not be allowed to cover a story on the Mystic River Cleanup. And so on.
I hope that the Daily's reporters never flinch to report on matters that they know are important, perhaps because they have first-hand knowledge of the matter. Some of the Daily's best stories get there because our reporters are involved in sports, academics and culture groups, and they discover what people care about or discover something they themselves care about.
As editors, we work to make sure that they are not abusing their position as a reporter, but we most certainly would never discourage someone from becoming more involved in the community that we live in.
Journalists must care to do their job properly. When they report on a matter, however, truth should be their guide and their personal opinions should only further encourage them to find that truth.
Daily reporters need to get involved, and gain the trust of those we live with. By building trust, we will gain access to not just the scandals, but also the personal stories that make up this campus.
The Daily's staff is a part of this campus' society, and they should never listen to the irrational rants of those who ignorantly call for "objectivity," when they are really calling for detachment.
