This is an archived ACP Forums thread.

Anonymous M.E., 10/21/2005, 3:43:04 PM

hey all, i'm the Managing Editor of a student newspaper and i was just looking for some journalistic input concerning an issue i've had in the newsroom here on campus.

i've written a story about it, feedback would be appreciated.



Last month’s issue of [the paper] was our first of the semester, and my first as Managing Editor of a student newspaper. As a political science major and history enthusiast, I joined the paper and eventually applied for the job of Managing Editor not to build my journalistic chops, but to bring news and perspectives to the student body that are typically underreported and underrepresented by the mainstream media. In the process I hoped to build upon the independent, unadulterated spirit of the student newspaper since it’s transformation from [old name] into [new name], while improving and refining the literary standards and quality that were arguably lacking during the early stages of the “new” paper.
So last month, after having just held elections for new club officers (Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, Design Editor), myself being elected by other staff writers as Managing Editor, we got down to the business of assigning story ideas. The faculty advisor of the newspaper suggested that the new Editor in Chief and I work on an editorial together in which we would discuss issues of religion in public school- specifically the issue of intelligent design and the words “…under God” in our pledge of allegiance.
After about a week of digesting the story idea, the Editor in Chief approached me suggesting a slightly different idea for our editorial. Claiming that she had “no interest” in intelligent design, I replied that in all honesty I had no interest in the pledge of allegiance, so we both agreed to separate the editorial- she would cover the pledge and I would write about intelligent design.
Over the next couple of weeks as the staff was working on their assigned stories, I mentioned briefly to the Editor in Chief a few ideas I had for the intelligent design piece. Being an unabashed advocate of not only evolution, but the separation of church and state (First Amendment), I made no shorts about which angle I was going to take with my story- it was obviously going to be pro-evolution. Hearing this, the Editor in Chief expressed her disapproval and insisted that I had to be “fair” to all sides.
Back to the drawing board, I began to contemplate how to write the story as even-handedly and balanced as possible, while still maintaining its angle in favor of evolution and the sanctity of scientific curriculum.
Laboring over how to accommodate the Editor-in-Chief’s request of a more balanced article, I scrapped the idea of a full out evolution-advocacy piece and instead began to accumulate news stories that outlined the varying philosophies concerning the origins of man as they were being presented on the front lines of public debate- intelligent design being taught in the Dover, Penn. school district, dinosaur museums teaching creationism- in other words, let the story speak for itself rather than personal ranting as I would liked to have done.
A week goes by and, still searching for a way to put the more balanced angle to the story into writing while still maintaining a slight tilt towards evolution, I come up with an idea for artwork that might make the story more provocative and invite readers to give it a look: use a diagram of evolution (the classic chart of the ape’s transition into modern man), except instead of a man at the end, I would have a picture of Jesus. The artwork, I thought, would be provocative enough to make readers take notice, while the text of the article would be fair and inoffensive and give all sides the benefit of the doubt.
I quickly e-mailed the art idea to the Editor-in-Chief, the Design/Art editor (who would, hopefully, help me conjure up the art with Photoshop) and the faculty advisor. While the advisor seemed to genuinely like the idea, the Editor-in-Chief did not, and claimed that I would need an “explanation” and “proof” of why I was running the art, and that I should come up with another idea. I responded to the e-mail explaining that if evolution is accurate and man evolved from a common ancestor with apes, and if Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure (and most historians agree that he was), then Jesus must have evolved from apes too.
The idea, for the time being, was shot down, but it laid the seeds for an editorial crisis to come.
A day or so later, the faculty advisor mentioned to me that the Editor-in-Chief expressed displeasure with the art idea because her father is a Baptist deacon and it would be offensive. Alarms began to go off in my head that something just wasn’t right- [the college] represents a large student body with a wide range of religious beliefs, and the personal religious beliefs of a newspaper editor shouldn’t have any influence whatsoever in decisions having to do with the content of the paper.
Yes, some people may be offended. Others may not. But the personal religious beliefs of one editor can’t be used to silence the opinion of others, and shouldn’t be used to pass value judgments on the content of the newspaper. That’s for the readers to decide, and if they feel obliged, write a letter to us explaining their opinions.
As the deadline for newspaper production neared, the controversy in the newsroom escalated and I hadn’t even finished my story yet. The Editor-in-Chief decided that her decision on the artwork would rest on the content of my story, further adding to the pressure of keeping the article balanced under threat of censorship of my art idea. The design/art editor, who at no point expressed any disapproval of the art idea, decided to go along with the Editor-in-Chief and put a stall on the artwork until he saw the story.
Basically, I was being put on the backburner, and the fate of my artwork rested on the approval of the Editor-in-Chief’s religiously influenced sensibilities.
As I went back to think about my story, I began to grow frustrated with the seemingly uneven balance of power in the newsroom. Both the Editor-in-Chief and I were elected democratically by the other newspaper staff, and nowhere in the club constitution did it state that any single editor had final veto rights over newspaper content- it was to be a group decision among the editors, and if that didn’t resolve the issue it would have to go to the editorial board.
My frustration only increased as the editors were in a meeting deciding other content to go into the paper. The Editor-in-Chief, who was threatening to veto my artwork because it might offend religious sensibilities, was insisting that a book review of the Bible that her friend had written, which was a gratuitously offensive and critical satire of the "good book," would definitely be included in the paper.
I was dumbfounded. The level of hypocrisy involved was mind-boggling.
Still, I told myself that the issue wasn’t critical yet, as they had yet to see my article in order to make a final decision on the art. Through my anger, frustration and confusion, I went home to finish the article on the origins of man. Fighting back the nearly overwhelming urge to redirect the story back to a full blown advocacy piece that was not only in favor of evolution, but that also blasted the sheer idiocy of people that claim (despite carbon-14 and radiometric dating techniques that conclusively prove otherwise) T. rex and brontosaurus lived alongside humans in the Garden of Eden before hitching a ride on Noah’s Ark, I went back to work typing frantically on MSWord.
But instead of letting loose as my heart told me to do, I followed my brain and finished the piece with balance, using half of the article to present pure news (without any opinion) and the other half with opinion that was as inoffensive and sensitive to other beliefs as possible. I made it a point to give all sides, even the illiterate bumpkins that deny all scientific conventions about when dinosaurs existed, the benefit of the doubt.
My art, and probably even my story, would depend on it.
Finally finished, I e-mailed the story to the other editors and the faculty advisor. Aside from the faculty advisor e-mailing me back complementing the story and suggesting minor corrections, I heard nothing from the other editors until the next day- a day that would see all hell break loose.
While eating my lunch in the newsroom the next day, the Editor-in-Chief walked in. I immediately asked how she liked the story. “It needs work. I can’t run it like this. It’s not good enough” were her replies. As emotions and voices skyrocketed, my art was shot down and the story was threatened to be cut in half, leaving my opinion out. As hard as I had worked to be as reasonable as possible with the article, I was told my story was unfair.
During the argument, the faculty advisor called the Editor-in-Chief, at which time I left and went to class. After going home and checking my e-mail, there was a letter from the EIC in my box, basically conceding that my article would run as is, complete with art. I was elated, although I suspected the faculty advisor simply informed her of the First Amendment and her lack of authority to single-handedly veto newspaper content.
A few hours passed and I received another e-mail from the Editor-in-Chief, this one with an advocacy piece in favor of intelligent design that would run next to my article as a point-counterpoint piece.
“Rebuttal?” I thought. “What was there to rebut?” I didn’t even write an advocacy piece taking a hard line on anything. Instead what I wrote was a news piece with some soft opinions at the end, and it was written that way specifically because the Editor-in-Chief was pressuring me to do so under threat of cutting my article and its art. And now that piece, which was watered down to be fair and balanced at the demands of the EIC, was being ambushed into a last minute point-counterpoint debate with a pure advocacy piece by the EIC herself!
I felt like my story had been sucker punched. A few weeks earlier I agreed to write a story on the intelligent design/origins of man debate because the Editor-in-Chief had “no interest” in it. I was then pressured under threats of veto to tailor my story to the Editor-in-Chief’s sensibilities by making it more balanced, and even then it still didn’t meet her approval as she threatened to edit the opinion portion out of my article. When the EIC realized she didn’t have the power to censor my article, she then whipped up a last minute rebuttal to co-opt the story into a point-counterpoint debate.
A flurry of e-mails ensued between the EIC, the faculty advisor and I in which I expressed my astonishment with the lack of ethics in having my story hijacked at the last minute. If a point-counterpoint feature is what they wanted, why couldn’t they just have told me that from the beginning so I could write accordingly, instead of telling me they had "no interest" in the story and pressuring me to soften up my own article to suit the EIC? If I had known the article was going to be a point-counterpoint debate, I would have written an advocacy piece in favor of evolution as a counterpoint to the EIC’s advocacy of intelligent design. A point-counterpoint feature would have been a fantastic idea if both sides were informed of the idea in advance and were allowed to formulate their arguments without seeing the other side’s article to build off of.
But that didn’t happen.
At present time, less than a week before the paper goes to print, I have been shut out by the EIC and the faculty advisor over this issue. They have distorted and misconstrued my point of view to make me appear irrational and petty, as if I’m simply doing this to “get my way,” or as if I’m threatened by the talents of other writers and their opposing viewpoints, none of which are true.
I am simply asking for respect as a writer to not have my editorial content pressured into conforming to an Editor’s personal religious beliefs, and for the common decency to be informed what context I’m writing for without having it blind-sided at the last minute by an Editor who wants to rebut my article out of sheer dislike for its content before it’s even published.




am i crazy here, or is there unethical behavior going on here?

thanks for the feedback.