The day after Valentine's Day, The Cavalier Daily ran a column by Ginny Robinson called "Love is Propaganda." Many people have commented on the merits of Robinson's argument. I'm concerned about the journalistic issues.
One of the most troubling of those was Robinson's use of an anonymous quote from a single person to represent "an alarming number of students."
Judging from her e-mail response, Robinson is comfortable with that, even in introspect.
"The student quoted in the column is not named because I did not want to implicate her personally or cause her any harm," she wrote.
That's not the way it's supposed to work.
Anonymous sources are a scourge. How do readers know that Robinson didn't just make up that person and her quote? They don't.
That kind of casual treatment of quotes threatens the credibility of Robinson and The Cavalier Daily.
There are circumstances that justify quoting people anonymously. Those instances are rare. There are standards that should be met, discussions that should be held. Editors need to be involved. As far as I can tell, nothing that was supposed to happen before granting anonymity happened in this case. There's no indication from Robinson's response to my questions that the person quoted was involved in the decision. Maybe she would have been happy to attach her name to her words. Maybe not.
Robinson gave no indication in the column or in her e-mail that she knows who she was quoting. Maybe the person wasn't even a student.
Robinson's unilateral decision to quote someone anonymously may be hubris or laziness or bad judgment. It is certainly bad journalism.
So is equating one person with "an alarming number."
Robinson said the anonymous quote "was typical of the comments I heard regarding the campaign from many of my peers."
How many is "many"? If Robinson had said she talked to half a dozen Love is Love t-shirt wearers and all of them said something like the one she quoted, that would be a little better, because readers would have some idea of how in depth her research had been. As it stands, readers are in the dark.
And, for all we know, the person quoted may be in the dark, too. There's no indication, in the column or in Robinson's e-mail, that she identified herself as a Cavalier Daily columnist or that the person she quoted knew her words might show up in The Cavalier Daily. Arguably, there are times when it's OK for reporters to report without identifying themselves. Very, very rarely. This case doesn't even come close.
Though "Love is Propaganda" was an opinion column, opinion should have some basis in fact. Facts can be gathered through observation. But sometimes gathering facts requires more than that - asking questions, for instance.
Robinson writes, "... the leaders of the Love is Love campaign and the Office of the Dean of Students should be questioned regarding their support of an oversimplified and clandestine attempt to manipulate public opinion in favor of LGBT supported issues."
Perhaps. And if Robinson thinks so, she should ask them. She didn't.
"I did not have the opportunity to contact the Office of the Dean of Students for an in-person interview," Robinson said in her e-mail.
She should have made the time before she wrote the column.
A face-to-face talk is the best way to get information from a human source. But when that's not possible, a phone interview may work. Or an exchange of e-mails. Any of those are better than jumping to conclusions and dispensing inaccurate information.
The sponsoring organization "did not even put its logo on the shirts, which could be interpreted as another mechanism to mask a social agenda behind the campaign," Robinson said. It could be interpreted that way. Or someone interested in knowing the answer could ask. Some folks who seem to be in a position to know say it wasn't a masking mechanism, it was a question of cost.\nThat may or may not sound convincing, but it's something Robinson should have tried to find out before she wrote about the logo.
There were smaller issues with the column, too. Robinson misquoted Carl Jung. She wrote "precursory" when she meant "cursory."
This bundle of shortcomings doesn't belong to Robinson alone. Her editors are responsible, too. They should have questioned the anonymous quote. They should have at least known who the quote came from. They shouldn't have let Robinson put that "they should be asked" section in if she hadn't tried to ask the question herself.
There are a lot of reasons these things happened. Snow. A new collection of editors. Not enough editors on board yet. But it still shouldn't have happened.
"We have learned our lesson," Executive Editor Robert Laverty said in an e-mail, "and are putting forth more effort to ensure this does not happen again."
Good.
Tim Thornton is The Cavalier Daily's ombudsman.
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