Whenever a newspaper reports on sensitive public issues, the reporting comes under severe scrutiny from everyone involved.
This past week readers were reacting strongly to reports about vandalism at a Jewish center in Davis, and about a report on proposed changes in the teacher training programs in California.
Several readers complained that both stories were unfair, inaccurate or biased. Some complained that the stories contained too much information.
The story about the attack on the Hillel House, a Jewish student center at UC Davis, was published May 10. The Bee reported that local and federal officials were investigating an arson at the house and that authorities had been alerted but missed the warning. Afterwards, the FBI and ATF agents joined the investigation because it was an attack on a place used for worship. The Davis police and the mayor called it a hate crime.
The Bee reported what happened and what was said accurately, but unsubstantiated accusations included in the story triggered prompt complaints.
According to Riad Z. Abdelkarim of the California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the article was “deeply troubling to the members of the American Muslim and Arab-American communities.” He wrote that the article included “significant factual errors and unfair accusations” that might lead readers “to reach inaccurate conclusions about the incident and perpetuate negative stereotypes and misconceptions about American Muslim and Arab-American students.”
Other readers suggested that unproved accusations should never be included in a news story. The unsubstantiated allegations Abdelkarim referred to involved the call to the police alerting them that “Palestinian students” from Davis and elsewhere were planning to attack the Hillel center. Davis police said they had not identified any suspects in the case, which was reported in the story.
Three campus organizations were identified in the story as Palestinian “groups,” a fact Abdelkarim said was incorrect. The groups all include students of diverse backgrounds, he said. (A correction was run in The Bee on Wednesday on that point.) “American Muslims are particularly sensitive to issues of media bias because of unfortunate experiences in the past,” he said. As one example, he cited “widespread media hysteria” after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, which he said resulted in “300 cases of hate crimes and other incidents against Muslims.”
The Bee’s response
Assistant Managing Editor Scott Lebar was the editor responsible for the Hillel story and acknowledged it should have been handled better.
“I understand the response,” he said, “and wish we had written the story differently. “I admired how aggressively we pursued the story,” he said, “particularly obtaining that key piece of information that the police had been warned ahead of time. I think we erred in giving details of that warning — and that is my fault. I approved that inclusion. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t.
“I know we were being conscientious — gathering as much information as we could, trying to give some perspective to the story. But in doing so, we took a broad brush and painted a group as suspect, which is hardly what we intended to do.
“The three organizations were named — and their names were provided to us by the university — because we had attempted to call them to give them an opportunity to respond to what the police were telling us. Because we were not able to contact anyone, the reference to them had the unintended effect of offending them. Which was the exact opposite of what we were attempting.
“In hindsight, this looks just plain obvious. my fault.”
The Bee’s obligations
The newspaper has an absolute obligation to be careful and accurate, and editors could argue it was both and then defend the Hillel story. The essential reporting ingredients, with the exception of labeling three campus groups too narrowly, was accurate. The most important thing from a public policy point of view was the issue of why the police did not act on the message left for them, an issue that was explained in detail.
The real problem with this story was one of fairness, and exercising due care not to mislead readers. Should an unsubstantiated accusation, even when a matter of public record, be reported? It is easy to say never, as more than one reader has suggested in the past. But, taken to the extreme, that would mean newspaper readers would never know who was accused of murder, mayhem or hate crimes until the matter was finally settled in court. That’s not an acceptable standard in a free society.
What it takes to resolve these issues is good judgment, and that requires weighing the value of competing interests. In the heat of pulling together this story, the editor decided the facts should be laid out for readers, not sloppily or without consideration of the impact, but the facts as they were known at the time.
With the hindsight of discussions about the impact of the accusations in this case, the same editor decided unsubstantiated accusations could do more harm than good.
If you disagree that this sort of information can trigger bigotry, be aware that the article immediately prompted a response to The Bee from an El Dorado Hills reader who — based on this story — accused all “Arabs” of repaying “our kindness” with criminal acts, terrorism, violence, desecration, biological warfare and “bloodbaths of fanaticism.” Lebar and Abdelkarim were both right: The Bee needs to be very careful not to feed misunderstanding and ignorance.
Teacher training debate
As part of The Bee’s reporting on education in California, this paper last Sunday provided an examination of concerns about the teacher training programs in the state. “A massive overhaul of California’s teacher credentialing program is underway,” the story reported.
Numerous experts were interviewed, including the state’s education secretary, policy administrators, the director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, state board members and educators.
Three things seemed to trigger complaints about the story:
- A statement by a state Board of Education member that “University teaching programs in general are abysmal….”
- A perception that the article was an attack on CSU Sacramento, which was barely mentioned.
- And photographs used to illustrate the article, which were taken at a private school that trains teachers, instead of at a local public university.
Complaints came immediately from faculty members at CSUS and from students enrolled in their programs. The Bee has been scolded by experts before, but rarely as vigorously as by the two outraged instructor/teachers and three student teachers.
According to five letters sent to me, The Bee article was biased, badly researched, propaganda, superficial, insulting, devoid of facts, ignored the role of parents in education, relied upon press releases and showed a lack of support for teachers in general. It also lacked context and was dominated by people who promote phonics -based teaching, a system that “is failing in many schools.”
Assistant Managing Editor Lebar was not sympathetic. “I think they protest too much,” he said. “The story is balanced and fair.
“I, too, was struck by the comment that ‘university teaching programs in general are abysmal.’ This comment was attributed to a state Board of Education member. We could have made that attribution more clear, I suppose.
“What is clear to me is that how we teach our children or, more specifically, how we teach our teachers to teach our children, is a subject that stirs some passion. The letter writers make some good points about other areas we could cover, but they don’t invalidate the story. I frankly find it satisfying that they care so much about it.”
A CSUS perspective?
Comment: The complaints essentially all claimed that The Bee should have praised CSU Sacramento as the best teacher training facility in the state, a subjective view that was not the focus of the article. Some administrators, faculty and alumni have argued for years that The Bee slights the accomplishments of the local university, and the recent complaints were consistent with that opinion.
The letter writers all disagreed with opinions of other education experts and public officials. A more effective tactic to make their points would have been to refute the premise — that change is needed — in a letter to the editor focused on the issues.
Finally, I will not use the names of four of the five letter writers to avoid embarrassing them. One university instructor misspelled the name of the reporter. Another wrote about a “miss statement” when he meant “misstatement.” One of the teachers-in-training misspelled “rigorous,” and the other misspelled “guidance” and “commitment.” That doesn’t prove anything about the quality of teacher training in California, other than to show that teachers, too, are human.
Student teacher Stephanie Southard wrote the best letter in the bunch, made no mistakes and concluded with this comment: “We are compassionate, caring, well-trained individuals who want every child to be successful, but we can’t do it on our own. We want the public to know that we’re on their side.”
I believe the public does know that, and most people want to support teachers and help find solutions for the problems facing educators and parents.
Note: For you careful readers out there, yes, the word “overwhelmingly” was misspelled in this column last week. I typed it, dropped the letter “h” in the process, and no one caught the error.
It was my mistake.
