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The hed, a play off the name of the new club (the Blue Diamond Cabaret), has triggered a spate of angry letters to the editor from students, staff, and alumni.  Even faculty within the university’s School of Media and Strategic Communications signed a public letter of condemnation sent to the paper.  It was published Friday in the opinion section.

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As a portion of it reads, “This sophomoric attempt at humor by using a slang term for a part of a woman’s anatomy undermines the credibility of everyone associated with the Daily O’Collegian.  Journalists must work every day to earn this credibility.  Once it’s lost, it’s hard to recover.“

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My take: The letter is odd, and beneath its faculty senders.  However well-intentioned the missive may have been, there is absolutely no reason why it should have been sent to the paper for public consumption.  O’Colly staff are already learning their lesson, taking flak from critics everywhere, and most likely reexamining their editing practices (or at least their use of puns).  They don’t need their own professors, advisers, and mentors piling on.

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Yes, the O’Colly is independent, but I will intellectually arm wrestle any OK State prof. who denies the paper’s connection to the media school.  Some of its staffers are the school’s students.  Bits of its content undoubtedly first come to life in the school’s classes.  And the school and paper certainly exist together in the minds of most OK State individuals when the words ‘university journalism’ are spoken.

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In the journalism universe I inhabit, you stand by your students.  You PRAISE in public and criticize in private.  You also very carefully decide when to stand aside, stage a battle or wage a full war.  This letter, with its highfalutin tone, public airing, and long list of names, is a full war.  Dear lord, people, it was a single shoddy header.

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As the paper’s opinion editor C.J. Cavin very rightfully asked, “Since when did it become the role of our faculty and mentors to demand an apology for making a mistake?  In my opinion, mentors and professionals take time to explain mistakes and instead of calling you out they pull you aside to explain the issue.”

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The Port Side has been credited with breaking several stories related to the scandal, including a compare-contrast breakdown of the original and altered scores and a report based on an interview with the college president (after she turned down outside outlets including the New York Times).

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With a hat tip to Campus Progress Journalism Network Associate Brian Stewart, I got in touch with Port Side editor-in-chief Alyssa Roberts and senior reporter Jeremy B. Merrill to learn more about the situation, the magazine’s role in covering it, and their advice for student media faced with similar scandals.

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Interview: Alyssa Roberts, Port Side Editor-in-Chief

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Interview: Jeremy B. Merrill, Port Side Senior Reporter

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The Iowan‘s coverage includes a special story series that ran this week profiling some of the families impacted by the funds raised by the marathon and a current Live page featuring frequent blog and video updates giving us a sense of the vibe and participants at the event.

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As a Huffington Post College report notes, “The sketch depicts a young woman fleeing through campus at night, apparently from a rapist. To her relief, the woman comes across one of the university’s many ‘Code Blue Phone Kiosks,’ GPS-equipped emergency phone systems that allow students to call UConn’s 911 services directly and wait for campus police as the machines flash warning lights.  But when the woman tries to use the emergency system to summon help, it misunderstands her words and a robotic voice calls her a ‘cock gobbler’ and ‘howler monkey bitch’ who is ‘crying rape,’ which gives the attacker enough time to catch up and strangle her in the parking lot.”

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The video has spurred an enormous amount of complaints, an organized Facebook protest campaign, a campus rally, and a larger “debate over rape culture and free speech.”  In a letter to The Hartford Courant, a UCONN student argued, “[T]he video mocks sexual assault survivors and contributes to a rape culture that is unacceptable on campus and beyond. The commentary in the video perpetuates myths about the legitimacy of rape claims, denigrating those who have been subjected to sexual violence. There is nothing humorous or redeeming about the video.”

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Amid the protests, UCTV has pulled the video from its website and issued a statement.  As one portion reads, “We apologize for any frustration or harm this content has caused. We are working towards a more careful screening process, as well as a review of our broadcast policies, that will prevent this situation from occurring again.”

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“[O]ur team has grown from about 15 to over 180 staffers, reporters, editors, and contributors.  That’s enabled us to cover major events in detail, from the death of Osama bin Laden to the debt ceiling debate to (more recently) the Iowa caucuses.  Along the way, we’ve begun interviews with major figures- including Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, and Chris Van Hollen last semester alone– with questions coming from students across the country.  We’ve even had the chance to talk about our coverage and our overall efforts in other outlets, like on MSNBC.  Our primary goal remains the same: to provide a platform for our generation, vaulting our voices, perspectives, and priorities into the national conversation.”

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One of the most interesting additions being rolled out is “Make a Pitch,” an open call to students seeking to submit “a really unique perspective on a particular issue.”  It is apparently part of NextGen’s efforts to further engage with its student base.

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As the web hordes continue to pounce and simply point and stare, I want to step back for a moment.  Below are seven lessons/observations for student media staffers, advisers, and j-profs to take away from the incident:

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1) Don’t insert jokes or vulgar statements into layouts-in-progress to fill space until the real headlines are created.  It’s a tradition of sorts in many newsrooms, but it is also one of the leading causes of post-publication embarrassment.

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2) Be especially careful with news content late at night.  Your brain is moving slower.  Your sense of purpose is more likely to be on pause.  Your initial instincts will be to passively scan a layout instead of truly proofing it.  And your double and triple checkers are probably also punchy, asleep on the backroom couch or already in their twin dorm beds.  Snap back into the present and stay focused, line by line, for just a few minutes more.

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3) Ensure as many eyes as possible take a look at the big stuff.  A team of copy editors meticulously combing through stories is meaningless if monstrous errors are sitting in the headers above them.  Have a crew devoted to checking the first-look elements such as the front page, headlines, photos, captions, and siders.

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This lesson represents a departure from my comments in the first post about this slip.  I initially stressed the fact that it was a single mistake, under the auspices of ‘hey, these things happen, let’s move on.’  I take that back partially after further consideration.  There were multiple mistakes here, including the joke insertion itself and the subsequent failure of numerous editors to catch it.

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4) In today’s media landscape, a single apology is not enough.  It is now a two-step process.  You must post the basic letter of regret from the editor.  But now you should also be prepared to publicly explain what happened behind the scenes in a separate column or media interview.  The fullest and most honest disclosures seem to elicit the greatest levels of respect and enable an outlet to get past a flub and move forward.

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Onward State’s recent handling of the Joe Paterno death faux pas is a perfect example of this two-step (including a full letter breaking things down by the editor who resigned, a follow-up letter by the site’s founder the morning after, and a subsequent interview run on Poynter and ProPublica).

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5) Take responsibility.  People forgive mistakes.  They don’t get over obfuscating or passing the buck.  In this case, the Journal quickly owned up to the error (although it seems some public squabbling played out on Facebook between the writer of the involvement fair piece and Journal editors after the initial note of apology did not explain that the writer had nothing to do with the headline).

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6) Close your heart valves for 24 to 48 hours and emotionally shut down.  Immense criticism, snark, and self-righteous ridiculousness will be flung at you from all corners of your campus and the web.  Every competing publication, high-blood-pressured prof., and spiteful student reader who has been waiting in the shadows will suddenly emerge to use your slip as proof of how awful your outlet is.  Then, a new day will begin and people will get back to classes and searching for campus parking.

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7) Smile.  You are now in the club.  The accidental publication of nonsensical news copy, vulgarities, inappropriate humor, spelling and grammar errors, and factual inaccuracies are a part of the news media, then, now, and forever.  After your apologies are done, segue to sharing in everyone’s laughter.  As the start of a tweet being passed around by some Suffolk students confirms, “We’re all just dumb f*ckers today.”

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A class talk with my j-students here at UT confirmed many of the sentiments expressed in Briana Gerdeman’s piece, “Alcohol Course Called a ‘Joke.’”  Apparently, many students see the hours-long program as a waste of time, something they click through while doing 12 other things, and, if anything, use as a resource to learn MORE about how to get drunk.  (Yikes.)  As a UGA student writes in a focus group report cited by Gerdeman, “I thought [the My Student Body course] was great!  It taught me all sorts of new tricks for drinking so I didn’t look so naïve coming into college!”

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Bottom line: It’s time to take a sobering look at your school’s alcohol education and awareness programs.

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Questions for a Related Report

What are the alcohol education initiatives on your campus, and how do students view them?  How much money is spent by the school on them?  Who is your school’s ‘responsible drinking czar’ and what does the job entail?  How does the school measure the related programs’ effectiveness?  If the My Student Body course is required of incoming students (as it seems to be nearly everywhere), what’s their take on it?  How much, if any impact, does it have on their drinking perspectives?  What is their advice for how to improve it?  And what does the course actually entail– the questions asked, information offered, and the style in which it is presented?  In a related sense, what type of information is offered that can be spun by students into “new tricks for drinking”?  More generally, what’s the alcohol and drug culture on your campus, circa 2012?  What are the latest, and most dangerous, drinking trends?  And are any student groups leading responsible drinking campaigns?

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Multimedia Options

1) Present a screenshot or meme slideshow of the questions and information featured in the My Student Body course required of incoming freshmen.  2) I do think a man-on-the-street video roundup of student reactions is appropriate here to ensure interested readers and administrators recognize the large amount and variety of students who find My Student Body ineffective (if that is, in fact, the consensus).  3) A slideshow of the top “tricks for drinking” the My Student Body course ironically provides underage students.

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A sexually suggestive headline sitting atop a recent article on the front page of The Daily O’Collegian has prompted an uproar at Oklahoma State University.  As I previously posted, the OK State student newspaper topped a front page centerpiece about a new strip club opening near campus with the header: “Diamond in the Muff.“

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The hed, a play off the name of the new club (the Blue Diamond Cabaret), triggered a spate of angry letters to the editor from students, faculty, and alumni.  Members of the school’s journalism faculty have also apparently signed a letter of condemnation.

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As one student wrote to the O’Colly, “I am disgraced for what appeared on the front page. . . . I would like to think (or at least did prior to today) that our school’s paper was run professionally by students who consider themselves as young professionals.  It is now apparent to me that the paper is run more like a playground. Jokes like that, while have a place perhaps at your buddy’s house on a Saturday night, have no place in a business.  I thought most people who have passed the seventh grade would know such a distasteful headline would offend many.”

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Along with finding it simply distasteful, others have charged the paper with sexism and inaccuracy– since the state legally only allows performers in related establishments to go topless.  On the flip side, it has been defended as funny and appropriate for a student audience.

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Journalism educator Kenna Griffin echoes my own response when initially seeing it, prior to any controversy.  As she wonderfully begins a related blog post, “My first reaction was ‘that’s clever.’  It was followed by ‘I’m so glad my students didn’t write it.’”

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An unfortunate slip in yesterday’s issue of The Suffolk Journal at Boston’s Suffolk University triggered an immediate apology from the student paper’s staff.  In a story about a Winter Involvement Fair, the main headline simply dubs the event a success (with an exclamation point).  The sub-hed, however, states: “Even we had some dumb fuckers sign up!“

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An editor’s note posted on the Journal homepage states, “We want to apologize profusely for the mistake and make it clear that we in no way harbor ill feelings towards the Student Leadership and Involvement Office [the fair organizers], nor any of the students and staff that work there. The sub-head was put in as a joke, by editors, that unfortunately slipped through our editing process later in the night. We want to make it clear that the reporter who wrote the article had no idea or anything to do with the subhead. We’ve spoken with SLI, who has been extremely understanding. We want to thank them for their support. Moving forward, we hope to learn from this experience and continue to do our best to keep the Suffolk community informed about what’s going on around campus and in the city. As always, thanks for reading the Journal.”

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My initial reaction: The slip is a cringe-worthy reminder about why it’s never a good idea to put jokes into headlines as space fillers.  Before the snickering and criticizing becomes too boisterous though, let’s remember: It’s a single mistake.  Mistakes happen.  Especially late at night.  In student newsrooms.  And as I’ve previously confirmed, the Journal is a great paper.  The apology appears genuine.  Hopefully staff can simply learn from this and move on.

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Related

‘Dumb F*ckers’ Fallout: 7 Lessons from the Student Paper Slip

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