I don't envy the job of a political reporter during election season. Politics is a mean business, and the political reporter has the unenviable task of separating fact from rumor and truth from slander. In many cases it's impossible to know for sure who did what when, so the safest thing to do is just stick to the facts and not get stuck in the quagmire of motives and intentions.
Unfortunately, The Cavalier Daily got itself stuck in some political scandal last week. I don't agree with the way the staff covered the story surrounding endorsements for Student Council presidential candidates. The articles jumped to conclusions that were not supported by fact and assigned motivations without sufficient evidence to do so. And after reading the e-mail the newspaper obtained that was the basis for the story, it's clear that the newspaper actually missed a large part of the story.
The staff broke the story in Wednesday's paper, reporting that Council's Executive Board recommended that endorsements by the Coalition and the First Year Council be nullified because those groups are not Contracted Independent Organizations. A reader pointed out that the headline of the story, "Exec Board says non-CIOs cannot endorse," was misleading, because as it turns out, the election chairwoman did not agree with the Executive Board's recommendation. The reader was right -- the headline was sensationalistic. There was a subheadline, but people are far less likely to read the subheadline, so you have to make sure the main headline can stand on its own.
The story also did not make clear until the sixth paragraph that the election chairwoman had not approved the Executive Board's recommendation. The article should have made it immediately clear to the reader that was the case.
The same reader also objected to the use of "[sic]" in a quote from the e-mail in which Council President Micah Schwartz informed the election chairwoman of the Board's recommendation.
The reader points out that abundant use of "[sic]" in this case -- four times in one sentence -- suggests that a reporter is attempting to undermine a source. The reader is right again. Reporters have the option of paraphrasing, and an overuse of "[sic]" makes a clear statement: Hey, isn't this guy stupid? That's biased reporting.
My main problem with the first article is that it invites the reader to draw conclusions that it doesn't completely support. It could be argued from a technical standpoint that the article just presents the facts and allows readers to draw their conclusions. In my mind, however, the story presents those facts in a way that really just allow one conclusion -- that the Executive Board tried to nullify endorsements for Daisy Lundy because Schwartz didn't want her to win. But there's no smoking gun, no real evidence for that conclusion. And if you don't have the evidence, it's irresponsible journalism to lead the readers to the conclusion.
Thursday's story was worse. It began: "Evidence has surfaced that suggests Student Council presidential candidate Ed Hallen expressed concern to the Council Executive Board over the Coalition and First Year Council's presidential endorsements, in a possible attempt to undermine support for opponent Daisy Lundy." The paper reported that Hallen called presidential candidate Brad Harrison to tell him that the FYC endorsement of Lundy may have been illegal and to ask his help in filing a formal complaint with the Executive Board so that they could investigate the issue.
The article went on to say, "Harrison said he did not realize Lundy potentially was being set up."
I didn't realize it either. Who says Lundy was being set up? The way this sentence is worded, The Cavalier Daily is saying that Lundy was being set up. Given the evidence the newspaper has shown, whether she was set up is still a matter of opinion, and opinion on the News page is never acceptable.
Then the article goes into how Hallen and several Council officers were seen chalking on Hallen's behalf on Grounds later that night. This has absolutely nothing to do with the story. It appears to be there to establish a connection between Hallen and th Executive Board and to make that connection appear illicit. But there's still no evidence to support it.
Further down, the article mentions "the allegations surrounding Hallen's motives for concern." What allegations? The only allegation I saw in this story was in the lead paragraph, where The Cavalier Daily alleged that Hallen wanted to undermine Lundy's support base. Someone else may have made the allegations to the newspaper, but as far as the reader is concerned, the allegations in this story are coming from the reporter. There is not a single quote from anyone else in this story that says Hallen wanted to undermine Lundy. Not one. The article does paraphrase Harrison saying that Hallen enthusiastically told him that the FYC endorsement of Lundy might be illegal. But that's hardly a smoking gun.
Still further down, the story digresses to explain how Lundy got hold of the e-mail and how Schwartz went to the room of the person who gave it to her to yell at him. This anecdote was unnecessary to the story, and it's only apparent purpose is to undermine Schwartz's character.
Now, though I may have just dished out some harsh criticism, I want to say that I do think there was a story here. I think that The Cavalier Daily missed a good part of it, however. The e-mail the stories are based on includes a number of questionable statements by the Council president. He says the Executive Board recommends revoking the Latino Student Union's right to endorse on the grounds that the group did not participate in endorsement interviews, but then acknowledges that he doesn't actually know that the group didn't participate in the interviews. He also acknowledges that even if he did know the LSU didn't participate, Council has no legal authority to punish them, but suggests that the group doesn't need to know that fact. And then further down in the e-mail, he acknowledges that Council can't legally violate a group's free speech rights by forbidding them to endorse and that Council would concede if challenged.
That is incriminating stuff, and it should have been reported. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Daisy Lundy and with who supports her and who doesn't, but there wasn't enough evidence for that story to begin with. The real story was in the statements that the Council president foolishly put into writing. The newspaper would have been better served writing that story than miring itself in circumstantial evidence and hearsay.
(Masha Herbst can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.)
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