« Letter to the Editor: Join ‘Take Back the Night’ and help work to protect America’s women | Main | On the lookout for leading ladies »
April 05, 2005
Errors shed light on lack of editorial policy
It’s difficult to draw the line between criticism and personal attack. Did Maisue Xiong and Colin Smith make personal attacks on Professor Martin Markowitz with their Dec. 7 letter? Did Markowitz make personal attacks on Xiong and Smith with his letter Feb. 22? There are several shades of grey regarding perceptions on both sides; the same shades surround the idea of what constitutes publishable content. Or maybe there is no line and criticism and personal attack are the same thing. There is no clear right or wrong answer here.
What we clearly did wrong, however, was run Markowitz’s 1,400-word letter. Our editorial policy said no letters above 500 words. We made an exception, and we originally wrote in this space justifying our decision. The decision was wrong, exceptionally so because we had limited Xiong and Smith to 500 words.
We received heavy criticism from several sides. Some students were upset that we published Xiong and Smith’s letter. Some students were upset that we published Markowitz’s response. When we receive such criticism, we tend to first retreat to our office, defensive, grumbling about how hard our job is and how no one understands us. It’s an unfortunate reaction, one we’re working on changing. Our reaction mimics many of our behaviors this year, in that it’s “What We’ve Always Done.” We’ve operated several years under that maxim, and lost out on opportunities to evolve sections of the newspaper. And now it’s time to change.
Take the Opinion section: we lack an editorial policy. But we’re working on that now. You have probably already noticed a few changes on this page. There’s a box above this editorial that lists our first formal attempt at organizing an editorial board. This five-person board will be responsible for reading all letters each week, checking for content and length and for the possibility of libel, and making certain that the editorial policy is upheld.
A few other changes:
• All letters must be 650 words or less.
• No anonymous submissions.
• We will contact each letter writer to 1) verify that they indeed wrote the letter and 2) notify them that we will be printing it with their name attached.
• We will contact students, faculty and staff who are criticized in letters, prior to the letter’s publication, so they can prepare for the criticism.
We don’t intend this policy to be a shield with which we can defend all criticism. We will still make mistakes, though of course we’ll try to minimize their occurrence. The policy will simply give us a set of guidelines to work with, a baseline to build upon.
The board will also be responsible for adding to and revising our editorial policy over the coming weeks, with the intention of developing a solid, workable policy by year’s end. Which is where you come in. We want to know what you think. And the perfect place to start is Thursday, April 14, at the Student Media Board open forum. It’s during convo hour in GLC 100E. Your ideas and criticism are what ultimately help us become a better newspaper.
Posted by msveum at April 5, 2005 09:17 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)