The past four days have been taxing for us as a newspaper. Ever since word got out early Thursday morning of an alleged bias incident in Lewis Hall, we have been working tirelessly to dissect the story, separate fact from rumor and present to you, our readers, exactly what we believe happened.
This has not been easy. A story as contentious as this one does not translate well from the rumor mill to the pages of our newspaper — everyone has his or her own account of the incident in question, and we have been careful not to let any form of personal bias cloud our judgment as we attempt to cover this story accurately and fairly. After all, that's our job. This week, that job has presented us with a number of questions of journalistic ethics. In the interest of being forthcoming with our audience, I will explain exactly why our coverage of this incident has unfolded the way it has.
First, to address the front page of Friday's print edition. Many readers were shocked to pick up our paper on Friday morning and discover another article about the upcoming TCU Senate elections as our lead story, with coverage of Thursday's incident nowhere to be seen. Several readers even posted comments online beneath the Senate article, protesting the lack of bias incident coverage. We were anonymously accused — on our own Web site, no less — of not caring.
The reality is that we jumped on this story immediately when we got word of the incident on Thursday, and our news department spent the day doing enough reporting, by contacting figures on both sides of the incident, to finish a story for Friday's paper. Ultimately, we decided not to run with that story, but that decision was not — I cannot stress this point enough — a judgment of its relevance or importance to the Tufts community. We held the article because we weren't yet confident that we had the whole story.
We had been given comments, both from the members of the Korean Students Association (KSA) in phone interviews and at Thursday's meeting at the Asian American Center, and from the freshman involved in the altercation with the Korean students, that conflicted on several very important aspects of the story. For reasons that weren't entirely within our control, we were unable to clear up the inconsistencies and follow up on certain essential leads before our deadline. Rather than risk printing a story that later turned out to be inaccurate or misleading, we waited before printing what we had.
On Friday, though, hundreds of students received e-mails from friends and student group leaders, and a number of student groups distributed a message from KSA members on their e-lists. Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman sent an e-mail to all undergraduates explaining that his office was looking into the matter. This changed things; it became obvious that in the face of consistent curiosity and widespread rumors that it was time to step in and print what we had. Luckily, we were able to verify conflicting details with the parties involved in the altercation. This additional reporting enhanced the story and cleared up any uncertainties we had held the night before. On Friday afternoon, we published our coverage of the incident on our Web site and sent a breaking news alert to all of our e-mail subscribers. Today, an updated version of that piece appears on the front page of the print edition.
Even then, we were careful not to print everything we knew. We decided to withhold the name of the freshman in question, but not because of any doubt whatsoever about his identity. After a long discussion of the ethical issues involved, our editorial board determined that the story was complete without the student's name, and printing his name would only fan the flames as rumors about the incident in question spread across campus like wildfire.
We are not a major newspaper in a big city; at the Daily, we report on the events of an insulated college campus. Word spreads quickly at Tufts, and we owe it to all parties involved to take a breath, let the administration do its work and reach our own conclusions later. Not printing his name allows this to happen more smoothly. We value the decision of the Tufts administration much more than that of the court of public opinion. Thus far, the Tufts judicial system has taken no formal action.
As a newspaper, our job is to report the facts as accurately as possible. We believe that we've done so, and we've given equal credence to both sides. Predictably, one side of this debate has been more popular than the other, but our goal is to cover both fairly. We acknowledge that covering this incident and its aftermath is still a work in progress, and we'll do our best to update you on this story as events warrant.
Sincerely,
Evans R. Clinchy
Editor-in-Chief
