Ispent this past Saturday morning posting fliers with my name on them all over campus, but I'm not a late entrant into the Student Assembly elections. The fliers are my way of objecting to The Dartmouth Review's latest example of tabloid journalism. For those of you who may not have seen The Review on Friday, I will only say that you did not miss anything worth reading.
Before I tell you a little bit more about the thinking behind my protest, let me first apologize to the campus leaders to whom I may have helped bring unwanted attention. It was never my intention to give even greater circulation to The Review's unsubstantiated rumors. I still feel, however, that silence will accomplish nothing.
My protest is simple: The Review showed a shameless lack of journalistic ethics by printing a story based entirely on unsubstantiated rumors and confidential sources. We, as readers, thus have no way to judge the merits of The Review's story, and the accused have been denied a proper chance to respond.
In response to my flier, The Review's editor, E. David Brewer, says that the identities of victims of sexual assault are usually kept confidential. It seems logical to shield the innocent from further harm by keeping them out of the media spotlight. That is, in fact, the policy of most newspapers when covering delicate court proceedings. Does this mean that the New York Times would print anonymous accusations that President Clinton sexually assaulted someone?
Of course not, and it's not because he's the President. Newspapers get most of their information on sexual assault cases from the police, not the victim. The Review didn't have that luxury in this case because none of these alleged victims have gone to the police. Indeed, most of them have apparently chosen to do nothing at all except talk to The Review. The Review's editors were thus saddled with the entirely different ethical dilemma of whether or not to print a story based solely on confidential sources.
The Review's actions are not without precedent. The most flattering analogy would be Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. They smashed traditional notions of journalistic ethics when they brought down the Nixon administration with their series of articles in The Washington Post.At first, The Post stories were, without a doubt, based almost entirely on unnamed sources and unsubstantiated reports.
If Woodward and Bernstein can rely on confidential sources, why can't The Review? And why wouldn't The New York Times print an anonymous accusation against Clinton?
The reason is that The New York Times, as well as most major American newspapers, still adhere to the traditional journalistic ethic that somebody has to be willing to go on-the-record for there to be a story to print. Where confidential sources are used at all, they must be "previously reliable and knowledgeable sources."
The National Enquirer and other tabloids don't bother with such standards. As for Woodward and Bernstein, they broke the story of the century; who cares if they broke a few rules along the way. At least they didn't make up the parts of the story they couldn't substantiate. The ends justify the means, right?
One of Woodward's reporters at The Post apparently thought so, but she saw her Pulitzer Prize revoked in 1981 when somebody discovered she made up her heart-wrenching story about kids and drugs. Everywhere today we see examples of news organizations compromising the truth to increase ratings or sell more papers. Whose ethics should today's student journalists seek to emulate?
At The Review, journalistic ethics have lost out to the desire to increase readership with sensationalism. The editors' judgement obviously wasn't clouded by a desire to stop sexual assault on campus. In Friday's issue, they chose to mock Sexual Assault Awareness Week, telling a victim of sexual assault to "get on with her life."
So how does The Review assure us that its confidential sources have previously proven to be reliable and knowledgeable? What previous leaks from these people inside the offices of The Dartmouth, Parkhurst, etc. have proven to be true?
The Review doesn't say. What motivated these people to come forward and tell their stories? What sorts of people are these? Has The Review investigated them and their motivations thoroughly? Again, The Review doesn't say.
Ironically enough, Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Hart and longtime Review crony used his column on Friday to heap praises upon the paper. I wonder how a traditional conservative like Hart sees fit to applaud the "professionalism" of a paper run by ethical standards that would make The National Enquirer blush. Maybe they forgot to show him an advance copy of Friday's cover article.
