Gareth McNamara
Two weeks ago, an article by News Editor Madeleine O’Neill, which examined the arrest of Wooster junior Sarah Loether in connection with drug-related activities, sparked debate on campus. Given the outrage I saw directed at the Voice staff, and the well-spring of indignant opinion threads that opened up across a number of social media outlets, I held my piece until now, wishing to see if someone else would put more eloquently what I wanted to say. I also wanted to contact Ms. Loether myself before once again dragging her to the fore of campus discourse.
I’d like to first take issue with some of the ways students have responded to Ms. O’Neill’s article. Using this case (and the Voice’s reporting on it) as sandbagging for your political views is no better than politicians exploiting mass shootings to fuel their respective sides of the gun debate. No matter how right your political stance may be, hijacking Ms. Loether as a poster child to reinforce it misses the real problem here.
Secondly, allegations of libel require that the article puts forward false information that damages a person’s reputation. Ms. O’Neill’s article made use of a publicly available police report, and to the best of my knowledge, did not state as fact any information extraneous to that report. This isn’t libel. If anyone had wished to take a legitimate issue with Ms. O’Neill’s article they might have pointed out that she failed to adequately stress that all information in the police report was alleged, given that Ms. Loether’s case was still sub judice at press time. Failure by the press to respect the presumption of innocence in an ongoing case is a fair concern, although not really a legal matter in this instance.
Our question should not be whether the Voice can legally do what they did (spoilers: they can). Instead, we should be asking, “Just because you can, does that mean you should?”
Did journalistic duty dictate that because the police file for Ms. Loether’s case was public, the Voice had to make it front page news? Not a bit of it. In the same issue, two other drug/paraphernalia busts were listed in the Security Reports section. As usual, Security Reports summarized these busts and respected anonymity. Why was Ms. Loether’s case worthy of being elevated to the front page and having her name included with it?
Could it be the quantity of substances and money involved? Doubtful. Whether or not Ms. Loether’s case could be said to involve quantities above the norm for drug incidents on this campus (and I have my doubts), Pablo Escobar she is not. There was also no overriding interest amongst the campus community in knowing the details of Ms. Loether’s case before the Voice printed them. This campus is blasé to drug incidents. We see them every week. Hate to shatter anyone’s illusions, but drugs are prominent at the College of Wooster. We expect busts to happen, we expect it to not be front page news and every week Security Reports confirms our expectations. Well, almost every week.
At this stage, I’d like to draw attention to several points in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. One: “Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.” When I spoke to Ms. Loether, she claimed that although she was contacted for comment by the Voice, she was led to believe that her comment was being elicited for an article on drug culture on campus in general, not one focused on her specific case. I would like to hear some clarification from the Voice on this; while contacting subjects for comment is commendable, ethical questions are certainly raised if the subject is misled as to the topic of the article for which their comment is being sought.
Two: “Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.” The Voice must recognize they’re playing to an incredibly small, incredibly interconnected crowd. Everyone knows everyone, or if they don’t know a certain someone, they know someone else who knows them. Singling out one student while leaving others anonymous in Security Reports makes them fuel for gossip and speculation. It does damage to their reputation in the campus community that — warranted by their activities or not — others involved in similar instances are not forced to experience. If the Voice wishes to argue that those involved in drug cases deserve this such treatment, fine. Apply it consistently. Devote a full news story to all campus drug cases that have a public police file associated with them. Or don’t.
Three: “Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.” It’s easy to dismiss a large and vocal group of your readers as idiots when your paper does not rely on them continuing to purchase it to survive. The Voice enjoys a reprieve from what is a very real pressure for newspapers proper. But this lack of pressure to respond to readers not as raving mentallers but as reasonable (and paying) customers, should not be confused with license to do as you please, sans accountability to your audience.
Supporting the Voice’s actions last week, Alex Boyer wrote of the student body’s need to accept that in the real world there are consequences. But if we’re going to bite the bullet and tell students to grow up and accept the consequences of their actions, student journalists will not be immune. Does the Voice affirm Boyer’s call, wishing to shed the mantra of “it’s just college, man” that prevails at Wooster? In that case, I applaud them. But I suspect that they, Boyer and the student body are just as happy with the semi-sheltered status quo we currently enjoy. Regardless of which environment they would prefer to publish in, the Voice may not have legal questions to answer for Ms. O’Neill’s article, but they certainly do have ethical ones.