The publication, The Daily Northwestern, covers both the university and the surrounding community in Evanston, Illinois. The apology addressed the paper’s coverage of an event that featured former Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a speaker last Tuesday and was attended by scores of protesters.
It said that the editors were sorry that photographs of some protesters had been shared by reporters on social media. It also said that reporters’ efforts to contact students for interviews using Northwestern’s directory had been “an invasion of privacy.”
“Ultimately, The Daily failed to consider our impact in our reporting surrounding Jeff Sessions,” the column said. “We know we hurt students that night, especially those who identify with marginalized groups.”
The piece was signed by Troy Closson, the paper’s editor-in-chief and a student at the university’s Medill School of Journalism, and seven other editors. (The Daily operates independently of Northwestern and Medill.)
The column sparked immediate criticism, much of it from journalists on social media who argued that taking photographs of people in public places and reaching out to ask for interviews is part of the job.
“Being a journalist requires empathy, but this ain’t it,” Gregory Pratt of The Chicago Tribune wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“How is it possible that a newspaper at what is allegedly a top journalism school would apologize for the basics of reporting?” Glenn Kessler, a columnist with The Washington Post, said in a tweet Monday. “This is a travesty and an embarrassment.”
But some wrote in defense of the editors at The Daily.
“I’m more shocked at how angry folks seem to be, because while I wouldn’t have made that choice, I don’t think it’s wild to think about how reporting can impact the people we write about and how to mitigate it,” Tracie Hunte, a reporter for “Radiolab,” the documentary podcast from WNYC, wrote in a tweet Monday. “They’re trying something and maybe it didn’t work! It’s fine!”
“One of only black students in history to hold his position,” Wesley Lowery, a journalist with The Washington Post, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, referring to Closson. “Student journalist who makes incorrect decision based on sincere desire to not harm marginalized campus group is publicly decried by industry’s most powerful (white) journalists. Definitely a lesson to be learned here!”
On Monday, Closson addressed the criticism. In a series of tweets, he said he appreciated people’s worries and added: “We aren’t unclear about our rights as a newspaper to cover student protest, but also understand the need to do so with empathy.”
Closson noted that he was navigating his role as one of only a few black editors-in-chief in The Daily’s more than 135 years.
“Being in this role and balancing our coverage and the role of this paper on campus with my racial identity — and knowing how our paper has historically failed students of color, and particularly black students, has been incredibly challenging to navigate,” he wrote.
“And our statement and the areas it fell short were largely a result of that — of how challenging it can be for marginalized students to navigate situations like those this past week while balancing our identities, roles as student journalists and positions as students at NU.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Charles Whitaker, dean of Medill, issued a nearly 1,300-word statement addressing the coverage of the protests, the criticism directed at The Daily Northwestern and the paper’s apology, which he called “heartfelt, though not well-considered.” He called the “vicious bullying and badgering” of students who covered the event deeply troubling. But he also asked the “swarm of alums and journalists who are outraged about the Daily editorial and have been equally rancorous in their condemnation” to give the young people a break.
The statement said, in part:
“I understand why the Daily editors felt the need to issue their mea culpa. They were beat into submission by the vitriol and relentless public shaming they have been subjected to since the Sessions stories appeared. I think it is a testament to their sensitivity and sense of community responsibility that they convinced themselves that an apology would affect a measure of community healing.
“I might offer, however, that their well-intentioned gesture sends a chilling message about journalism and its role in society. It suggests that we are not independent authors of the community narrative, but are prone to bowing to the loudest and most influential voices in our orbit. To be sure, journalism has often bowed to the whim and will of the rich and powerful, so some might argue that it is only fair that those who feel dispossessed and disenfranchised have their turn at calling the journalistic shots. But that is not the solution. We need more diversity among our student journalists (and in journalism writ large). We need more voices from different backgrounds in our newsrooms helping to provide perspective on our coverage. But regardless of their own identities, our student journalists must be allowed — and must have the courage — to cover our community freely and unfettered by harassment each time members of the community feel they have been wronged.”
The event last week featuring Sessions was hosted by the Northwestern University College Republicans. Meant to focus on “the real meaning of the ‘Trump agenda,’” it was free and open to the public.
Two days after his speech at Northwestern, Sessions, a Republican, formally announced that he was entering the Senate race in Alabama. He emphasized his loyalty to President Donald Trump, who forced him from office a year ago after Sessions recused himself from overseeing the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Trump and his associates worked illegally with Russians to interfere in the 2016 election.
Trump has made fighting political correctness and pushing boundaries central to his identity. The issue of free speech on college campuses has become a rallying cry to some of his supporters, including many young conservative activists, who point to instances around the country in which conservative viewpoints — and appearances by conservative speakers — have been shunned or protested by liberal students and professors.
In 2018, during Sessions’ contentious 21-month tenure at the Justice Department, he announced the administration’s so-called zero-tolerance policy, which led to thousands of family separations along the U.S. border with Mexico.
In an article Wednesday about Sessions’ speech, The Daily reported that it was interrupted multiple times by demonstrators who pounded on the door of the auditorium where Sessions was speaking and recited phrases including: “You are a racist; you put kids in cages.”
Another article Wednesday focused on the protests spurred by the event. It mentioned that university police officers had blocked protesters from entering the venue, and it quoted demonstrators, including a protester who said, “There’s a difference between having a sustained dialogue and listening to other opinions and accepting hate speech and fascism.”
On Friday, The Daily reported, Morton O. Schapiro, president of the university, said that unlike some institutions, Northwestern does not grant amnesty to student protesters. “You can protest, you can’t hurt anybody, and you can’t shut down speech,” he said. “And if you do, you’re going to face the consequences.”
He also questioned whether it had been a good idea to invite Sessions instead of a different conservative speaker, adding that the episode had been “polarizing.”
This article originally appeared in
.