For a week or so, I thought the Medill controversy had fallen silent--that Dean Lavine scraped and spun his way out of the melee, narrowly escaping the wrath of his peers in the media, his students, his faculty. Just in case you don't know:
Back on March 1, the Provost found that students' sentiments resemble the dean's unattributed quotes, and therefore--despite the fact that all 29 students deny saying the dean's quotes and the dean has no notes or evidence to prove his reporting--that was sufficient evidence to prove the quotes weren't fabricated.
The faculty accepted the dean's apologies; the Reader, the Daily and the Trib wrote some editorials to the effect of similar-isn't-good-enough; Eric Zorn and North by Northwestern rereported David Spett's original editorial, finding the same results. And the facts remained the same--none of the students claimed to have said the quotes, the Dean remained the dean, and the faculty seemed to begrudgingly return to the trenches as the issues continued to divide them.
Then earlier this week, Tom Hayden--the professor whose IMC 303 class that sat at the center of this spin mess--sent out a letter to the Medill community, expressing his "extraordinary sad[ness]" with this situation. Sad about the dean's veiled tactics and lies? Of course not! He is "sad that a very small number of students, faculty, alumni and unaffiliated journalists seem so intent on doing damage to Medill at such a critical and positive stage in its evolution." He went on to further state that the real name of this school is not the Medill School of Journalism, but rather Medill. (Did I mention he's on that secretive renaming committee?)
Hayden went further, claiming that at least three students from that infamous class refused to speak with Spett, one "bitched him out," and another hung up on him. (Today, Spett responded to Hayden with his first editorial on the subject since his original a month ago, reasserting that his notes are strong and that if Hayden would like to compare their notes together, he would be happy to.)
But where the mess really hits the fan is last night's forum, in which Dean Lavine channels High School Musical and pleads that we're "all in this together." While I didn't attend, North by Northwestern's coverage via live blog gives a great synopsis and (bonus!) video where we can watch spin in action. Really, it's wonderful stuff.
But what's the best part of this video? At about 45 seconds in: "I want to start with the obvious question: Did I lie with the quote I used in the letter to the alums about a student in the class a year ago? The answer is: I sure didn't."
Sound familiar? It might ring a bell. Remember one of the dean's unattributed quotes? "I came to Medill because I want to inform people and make things better. Journalism is the best way for me to do that, but I sure felt good about this class."
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Dean Lavine Sure Hates This Mess
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Is it news?
The Medill drama continues to snowball, and now Hamilton Nolan over at Gawker is mocking the whole situation, calling it “all that self-referential ivory tower bullshit.” Isn’t there something a little bit “people-in-glass-houses” about Nolan’s statement? Isn’t the whole basis of Gawker self-referential ivory tower bullshit? Maybe because this John Lavine story is actual news (rather than regurgitated NYMag and PageSix gossip hash), it upsets Gawker so that they treat it as if they’re above it in lieu of covering it.
It is an egregious error on Gawker’s part (as well as the part of Margaret Lyons over at Chicagoist yesterday who said she “barely cared” about the story) to treat this story flippantly. While this isn’t national mainstream news and there are bigger things to worry about in the world, watching journalists treat this story dismissively disturbs me.
For the dean at one of the top journalism schools in the country—whose controversial curriculum and proposed school name changes are exacerbated only by his heavy-handed manipulation where faculty, stripped of their governance, fear speaking against him on the record—to arrogantly disregard the ethics of his practice is news that should be covered, if only to force John Lavine into communication and transparency with students and alumni and to urge him to reinstate faculty governance among his peers.
EDIT: I'd be remiss not to mention the Eric Zorn's reporting job on this story. In his Trib blog Change of Subject, he's followed up with the faculty who did not sign the faculty memorandum. There are some interesting responses to look over, many of which are telling of the rift that currently divides Medill's faculty.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
More Medill Gossip, Progress
Since David Spett's February 11 Forum piece on Medill Dean John Lavine's hypocritical journalistic standards, things have certainly snowballed. His story received coverage on WTTW's Chicago Tonight, NPR's All Things Considered, The Reader, the Chicago Tribune (not to mention their relatively caustic editorial), the Sun-Times, and a handful of news services.
Now, some of Medill's faculty has released the following statement, and I couldn't be more proud of some of my former professors. Their personal letter to Lavine can be found on Poynter.
Statement from the Medill Faculty
February 19, 2008
We, the undersigned members of the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism, are deeply troubled by Dean John Lavine's use of unidentified sources in his columns for Medill, the school's alumni magazine. We also are concerned about the public questions that have arisen regarding the ethics of attribution and sourcing, and commend the Daily Northwestern and columnist David Spett for raising these issues.
Public discussion about this matter has moved beyond the issue of a quote attributed to an unidentified student to a question of the dean's veracity, specifically whether the quote at issue was fabricated. Regrettably, much of this discussion has itself been anonymous, posted on the Internet by unidentified sources, an act that if predictable is nonetheless unprofessional. We speak publicly, and on the record.
The dean could, if he wished, put an end to what has become an embarrassment to Northwestern and to Medill. We call on him to do so immediately. As the Chicago Sun-Times said in a Feb. 15 editorial, "With his and the school's integrity on the line, the easiest thing for Lavine to do now is produce his notes or have the IT department retrieve that deleted e-mail to allay concerns over whether the unattributed quote is real."
This matter has become a crisis for the school. The principles of truthfulness and transparency in reporting are at the core of Medill's professional and academic mission. The dean's Feb. 14 memorandum in which he offered his explanation of events to Medill faculty is at best inadequate. It says that the quote at issue is essentially the same as that used by a student in an online video, and that the quote at issue is therefore a "fact." But of course the language used in the video is not the same as that in the contested quote, nor is the speaker in the video the unidentified source of the contested quote. Finally, the student in the video is talking about a different Medill class than the one that is the subject of the contested quote.
It is wrong to argue that the forum in which the questionable quote was used, the school's alumni magazine, is not subject to the same standards as other publication venues. Accuracy and truthfulness are non-negotiable requirements for any material prepared for publication in any forum, including in marketing and public relations. Indeed, the defense that Medill magazine is a public relations vehicle and therefore held to a lesser standard than other forms of publication is an insult to Medill's Integrated Marketing Communications faculty and staff, who are bound by the same Integrity Code, in all its particulars, as are the school's journalism students and faculty. As important, Medill magazine speaks directly to the many audiences to whom Medill owes its greatest fealty: students and alumni of the school's journalism and integrated marketing communications programs; our students' parents; the dozens of media firms around the United States and the world where our students take internships; donors to the school's academic and professional programs; employers and practitioners in both journalism and marketing communications. All of these audiences deserve a more complete accounting than the dean has thus far provided. We call on him to do so immediately.
Mary Coffman, Associate Professor
Eric Ferkenhoff, Lecturer
Douglas Foster, Associate Professor
Loren Ghiglione, Professor
George Harmon, Associate Professor
Sharon Kornely, Senior Lecturer
Craig L. LaMay, Associate Professor
Donna Leff, Professor
Arsenio Oloroso, Lecturer
Marcel Pacatte, Lecturer
David Protess, Professor
Larry Stuelpnagel, Assistant Professor
Mindy Trossman, Assistant Professor
Mary Ann Weston, Associate Professor Emerita
Charles Whitaker, Assistant Professor
Jon Ziomek, Assistant Professor Emeritus
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
"How many of you guys have heard of... blogs???"
When will journalism classes teach appropriately for students who have already mastered the crazy wild unruly media of the Internet? It's nothing new for us nutso college kids. Nothing earth-shattering. I'm so tired of reading about the Internet.