IF YOU caught a glimpse of Thursday's paper, you probably saw the front-page headline announcing that a University student was being charged before the University Judiciary Committee "for music piracy." If you read the first two lines of the story, you learned that the student in question was Rob Froetscher. And if you read the first four column inches, you found The Cavalier Daily affirming, without attribution, that "Froetscher ultimately did more than simply copy music at the library's expense: He decided his experience would provide fodder for an article for The Declaration."
If you scrutinized Monday's paper, however, you may have discovered a little, gray box on page A2 retracting that front-page story. According to a statement Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Mills and Managing Editor Kristin Hawkins gave me, the article "could be considered libelous."
A lengthier, clearer, more prominent retraction might have done a better job of setting the record straight. It might also have noted what was true in the story. And that's not an insignificant matter in this case, both because readers deciding whether to copy music may want to know whether anyone is really facing UJC charges over piracy and because the story went well beyond Froetscher's case.
But The Cavalier Daily was right to retract the story. It should not have affirmed that Froetscher copied music, nor should it have said he had admitted doing so. "I never made a comment on whether or not I had or had not actually copied any CDs," he told me, "and I made that clear." According to the editors' statement, "it seems that the profiled student did not tell our reporter that he engaged in this behavior." And Froetscher's article in The Declaration never quite affirms that he did. (This is noted near the end of the Cavalier Daily article, on page A2, but earlier in the story, on page A1, the Declaration article is said to have "detailed [Froetscher's] own experience ordering and copying CDs from the library.")
But the article was not entirely baseless. Froetscher confirmed to me that he did "basically" tell the reporter he "was being charged with copying a CD." He also confirmed that he was facing UJC charges based on the allegation that he copied music.
Nevertheless, the article, written by senior writer Maura O'Keefe, should not have been published. Not only did it turn out to be inaccurate, but it had flaws that required no investigation to detect.
The biggest problem the editors should have seen on the surface of O'Keefe's article is lack of attribution. (That's not the only problem: The article also editorializes, which O'Keefe denies, and even gets the UJC's name wrong.) The statement that the Declaration article "detailed his own experience ... copying CDs" is the closest it comes to saying where The Cavalier Daily got the idea that Froetscher had pirated music.
When I spoke to O'Keefe, she told me it was she who had concluded Froetscher had copied music, based on multiple interviews with him and re-readings of the Declaration article. But she admitted that she could not say that Froetscher had said he had copied music.
It is not a reporter's job to present her own conclusions as if they were known facts.
O'Keefe insisted, quite vehemently, that she had not accused Froetscher of anything, but merely reported accusations he himself said had been made by others. That is not true. The story said, without attribution -- apparently on the strength of O'Keefe's judgment -- that Froetscher had copied music; it also asserted as "fact" (although it is an opinion) that copying music is stealing. It thereby accused Froetscher of stealing, that is to say, of breaching both law and honor. Moreover, because the story said Froetscher did not deny that piracy is theft, the accusation that he copied music came close to being an accusation of hypocrisy.
"The way everything was phrased," Hawkins said, "it seemed so clear that Maura had gathered that information." But it was not clear. For it to have been clear, an explicit statement -- just a few words, "So-and-So said" -- identifying a source would have been necessary. Demanding such statements every time the statement that Froetscher had copied music appeared might have led to the revelation that O'Keefe was proceeding on her own judgment that he had done so.
By the nature of their jobs, reporters acquire information that editors cannot verify. But one thing editors can and should do is make sure reporters support their stories by telling us readers where they got that information. Peppering a story with "he said" and "she said" may not always produce the sweetest possible prose. But in this case, it might have spared The Cavalier Daily the bitter aftertaste of a front-page story that had to be retracted.
Alexander R. Cohen is The Cavalier Daily's ombudsman. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Mills and Managing Editor Kristin Hawkins did not edit this column because it quotes their statement.
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