JUST BECAUSE everybody seems to be ganging up is no reason for a newspaper to join the gang.
Tuesday morning, March 25, the front page of The Cavalier Daily prominently featured a report on an effort to get Student Council to "take action against" the gossip Web site JuicyCampus.com. The next day, the newspaper reported that on the night of the 25th, Council had, "unanimously passed a resolution" critical of the "hotly debated" site.
In both stories, but especially in Tuesday's, The Cavalier Daily gave substantial attention to the views of individuals critical of Juicy Campus. But no one, neither an owner nor a user, was quoted in defense of the site.
A hot debate requires two sides, at least. And wherever people are getting criticized for doing something, either they agree with the criticism, in which case that's worth noting, or they disagree with it, in which case theirs is an opposing view of the story.
News stories ought to be fair. That doesn't mean reporters should try to make everyone look equally good or bad -- often that would require distorting the facts -- but it does require that they make an effort to get all sides of the story.
And fairness is especially important where a person or organization is coming under attack. In this case, Juicy Campus, and by extension its creators and users, were being attacked by Student Council. Whether the attack was justified or not, the targets had a right to be heard in their own defense.
Yet Tuesday's story did not indicate that any effort was made to contact Juicy Campus or anyone who would defend it, and neither the reporter nor the news editor working that day could tell me about any such attempt. That editor, Tom Madrecki, told me that "in the past it has been ridiculously difficult" to get representatives of certain Web sites on the phone. He named Facebook as an example. But it wasn't Facebook under attack: It was Juicy Campus. And I e-mailed that site at 2:03 p.m. Monday, working on this column, and was on the phone with CEO Matt Ivester four hours later. That's not a bad response time.
The reporter, Hannah Wallace, argued that her story wasn't about Juicy Campus, but about Student Council's response to it. That's true, but it's not enough. The story, quite rightly, gave reasons for opposing Juicy Campus. Those reasons ought to have been answered.
Similarly, Alexandra Hemenway argued that her story on Wednesday, reporting that the resolution had passed, was about a Council meeting, not Juicy Campus. "The overwhelming majority in that room was in favor." But a newspaper ought to promote debate, not proclaim the decisions of majorities while ignoring minorities. A fair report of the meeting would have mentioned the dissenting views -- and an accurate report would not have called this vote "unanimous," as Hemenway's did, without mentioning that two representatives abstained.
Madrecki told me The Cavalier Daily did not know what sort of action Council would attempt against Juicy Campus until late Monday night. That indeed made it difficult to get responses to the specific bill Council passed. But while there has been debate about what sort of action against Juicy Campus is best, if one wants to stop the gossip site or minimize its impact, the larger question is whether the site should be fought at all. And Madrecki acknowledged that he knew by Monday afternoon that something was going to happen, so there was time to seek a response from Juicy Campus and its users -- although in Wallace's defense, she said she had taken over the story from another reporter late in the day.
Ivester, the CEO, called Juicy Campus "an outlet for students to talk about the things that most interest them." He pointed out that there are some situations in which a student is afraid to say true things publicly, because there might be repercussions. "If you were to start from the assumption that [everything on Juicy Campus was] true, then I think it would be a much less controversial site." It's not my job as ombudsman to say whether Ivester's arguments are compelling. But I can say that they are serious arguments, and that they ought to have been heard.
A new checklist News Editor Christina Brown said reporters are being required to complete asks them to "make sure to have all the 'sides' of a story covered." That may help ensure fair coverage in the future. But a sense of justice should have been all it took to ensure that The Cavalier Daily did not join Student Council in ganging up on Juicy Campus.
Alexander R. Cohen is The Cavalier Daily's ombudsman. He can reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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