Update 5 p.m. Saturday: Here is a link to the complete text of today’s Waterbury Republican article on Braff. This blogger has copied and pasted the entire story into his own blog. Don’t know whether what he did is legal or considered “fair use.”
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What an interesting case this is. A student newspaper editor at a major Connecticut university could lose his job for speaking out against that institution.
[Aside: Unfortunately the Waterbury Republican has put half of the above linked article behind a pay wall. Plus, today's front-page print edition update article doesn't seem be to anywhere on the Rep-Am.com website and there's nothing I could find in any other publications, so you'll have to take my word on some of it.]
Here is the Cliff Notes version: Jason Braff, editor of the Quinnipiac Chronicle, is on the hot seat for going public with his disagreement with university administrators. But those same administrators don’t even have the guts to tell Braff they don’t like his criticisms. They insist that in granting an interview with the Republican (published Oct. 30) that Braff merely violated the university’s policy of not allowing students to speak to the media without prior approval from Quinnipiac’s PR people.
In that interview, Braff branded the school’s policy of not allowing the Chronicle to post articles on its website before the the print edition comes out as “ridiculous.” Pretty strong stuff, eh? So administrators, who have suggested Braff reconsider whether he should continue in his role, have scheduled a meeting with the student editor for after Thanksgiving.
First of all, even more “ridiculous” than the website policy is that students need to get the approval of handlers to speak to the media. However, since he receives an $8,000 stipend for editing the paper, Braff could be considered an employee and so by taking the money might reasonably be expected to conform to the policy. But of course, the policy is not restricted to those students who are employed by the university.
I’ve seen this kind of dynamic at work before. Some people who work in public relations understand very well that their role is vastly different from that of journalists. They’d just like to see to it that their institutions receive a fair shake in the press. And I couldn’t agree more.
But others are control freaks who see the media as an annoyance and an inconvenience that impedes their ability to control the debate and varnish the institution’s reputation. These PR types have a fundamental misunderstanding of the valuable role journalists play in our society. This attitude is even more damaging when promulgated in a academic environment, especially one like Quinnipiac, which has a journalism program whose fine reputation has now been called into question. That program, according to the Republican, “is also seeking accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, which evaluates journalism and mass communications programs at colleges and universities.”
Earth to Quinnipiac’s public relations department: the Chronicle should not be your propaganda vehicle! I like the comments of the student journalist and two Quinnipiac journalism profs quoted in the Republican. Good for them for speaking out against this whole episode:
“The university should think about what this is going to accomplish because down the road, curtailing the ability of students to say what they think is quite problematic. It certainly goes against what we teach them.”
Margarita Diaz, a journalism professor
“It’s an astonishing disregard for academic freedom. I think this whole episode illustrates an administration so obsessed with its image that it is driven to paranoia. I can’t imagine any accrediting body that deals with the First Amendment will give accreditation based upon this letter.”
Sean P. Lyons, journalism professor
We have to go through the public relations office anytime we want to interview mostly anyone. We have to email questions in. As a student, it is very disheartening when you learn these interview techniques and you have to do it via e-mail, something we are taught not to do.”
Erin Miller, features editor for the Chronicle
You go, girl!
11 responses so far ↓
1 Marshall Miles // Nov 17, 2007 at 10:54 am
Any employee of the school SHOULD go thru the school if they want to make policy or editorial sstatements. A student that is volunteering at a school newspaper, SHOULD NOT be subject to those same standards…they should, and do have the right to speak their mind…after all, they, or their parents are paying big bucks for that right.
Just another example of the tightening media noose in our county on all levels.
2 Peter Halle // Nov 17, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Marshall, I agree he should have the right to speak out. But it is not because he volunteers (he’s paid a stipend), and it’s not because his parents pay tuition (for all we know he’s on scholarship). Students should have the right to voice their opinions in the school paper.
3 Janet Manko // Nov 17, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Students should have the freedom to write and speak freely. No student, or American citizen for that matter, should ever have to feel he or she needs to “pay” (re: the high tuition at the University) for the right to freedom of speech.
And really, the statement of the editor seems pretty darn innocuous. It IS ridiculous to have to wait until a print edition of the student paper comes out before posting online.
Can the Quinnipiac administration really be that paranoid about the school’s image? Quinnipiac may as well have its PR department write the student newspaper, then. Why have students write, or speak, if there is such a strong policy of controlling the release of any information?
4 Terrence McCarthy // Nov 17, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I worked for 11 years at a large hospital in western Mass. During that time I wrote a lot of op-ed pieces stating my opinions about mental health ( I was a counselor in the psych department ) None of the op-ed pieces I wrote ever ran in the local paper, the one whose offices were in the same city as the hospital. One day, in the break room, a nurse administrator and I were talking. The chat turned to writing. She asked me what kind of writing I was doing lately. I said I’d had quite a few op-ed pieces published, mostly in papers in Connecticut. I added that mental health care was a topic I often focused on. She asked me if I cleared my work through the hospital’s PR department. I said I hadn’t. She said I should; I might get in trouble if the PR department learned of my moonlighting job. I didn’t take her advice. I kept writing the kind of stuff I had been writing, and never even considered running it past folks in PR.
So.
You go to college to learn stuff. Some lessons are part of a lesson plan, some aren’t. Some things are learned outside the classroom. Mr. Braff’s situation is indeed complicated by the fact he’s paid ( just 3 grand less than my salary as a first year reporter back in the 70s! ) But the issue is much larger than Braff’s part of it. Expecting students to clear what they want to say to a reporter with the college before he or she talks? Good Lord. That’s an awful lesson to teach. But students shouldn’t be surprised if they land post college jobs in places with the same egregious policy as the one in place at Quinnipiac. Who knows? They may end up working at a hospital.
5 Marshall Miles // Nov 17, 2007 at 4:52 pm
The reference to parents paying big bucks was supposed to be a sarcastic joke, not be actually mean that if you pay you ahve free speech!!! Uh, the joke is on me!
6 Steve Potter // Nov 17, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I spent more than a decade of my career to date as a journalist, and then more than another decade in public relations. I am today director of communications for a technology company near Boston. As other correspondents have implied, Quinnipiac’s PR department is apparently filled with idiots. Forget the dictum that there is no such thing as bad PR; The ham-handed enforcement of this ill-conceived policy is ultimately damaging to the university’s reputation, far more so than anything a faculty member, administrator or student would be likely to say to the press.
My best guess is that none of the people who promulgated the policy or who have been charged with implementing it, have ever been journalists. I say this because anyone with any experience on that side of the fence would immediately recognize the self-defeating nature of such a policy.
I’m leery of hiring for PR positions candidates who lack a background in journalism; they seldom do well, in part because they can’t comprehend at an operational level how they ultimately help themselves (that is, the organization they represent) by helping the journalists they work with.
Specific to Quinnipiac’s policy, it is both wise and proper that anyone who speaks for the university, that is who in their professional role represents the university’s position on a particular issue, to receive counsel from the university’s PR department, so that they are articulating accurately the university’s position of the subject.
But while administrators and faculty may sometimes serve as representatives of the university, often they aren’t, even when the topic under discussion may be related to the university. (Consider faculty members speaking to the press during contract negotiations with the university. In this case a faculty member would be speaking as a member of the union. Clearly it would be inappropriate — perhaps even illegal — for the university’s PR department to interfere with that communication.)
As far as students go, it’s ridiculous for the PR department to think it has any right to muzzle them. Not to put too fine a point on it, but students are the university’s customers. (A student salary doesn’t come close to covering the cost of tuition and other university-related charges.) That status, in my mind, gives them the right to express their opinions about any aspect of the university they choose to.
There’s a subtext to this contretemps that ought to be noted, and that is the wisdom of having student newspapers at the college or university level. A paper that is chartered by the school and receives student activity funding is in a different position from an independent, student-run newspaper that covers the university. Admittedly, this is a rare situation because it’s difficult for most college newspapers to generate sufficient funding to publish. That said, most of the best college papers fit this profile. And not a surprise that many staff members from those papers wind up with good jobs in journalism.
7 Mark Braff // Nov 18, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Just to clarify one important point: Jason is not paid by QU. He does not receive a check of any sort. The “stipend” to which the Waterbury paper referred is actually a partial scholarship. He is not in any way, shape or form an employee of the school.
8 Terry // Nov 19, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Steve,
Exceedingly well put. Career PR people too often fail to understand the role of journalists in our society.
Mr. Braff,
Thanks for the clarification. It is a distinction well worth noting. If it’s only a scholarship Jason is receiving, then he should not be bound by the constraints of QU’s public affairs department, which seems like a coalition of the clueless.
9 Steve Barlow // Nov 19, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Terry:
Way back when the earth’s crust was cooling and I was editor of the student paper at the small college I attended in Pennsylvania, we regularly trashed the administration for one dumb policy after another. Never once, though, did any administrator attempt to shut us down or revoke the small tuition credit given to the editor. I guess I’ll have to reconsider my opinion of the college! (Or thank our battle-weary faculty advisor again.)
10 Terrence McCarthy // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:11 am
I’d love to see Jack Hardy weigh in on this. Hardy was a housemate of mine back in the Stone Age. He’s a famous folk singer/songwriter now, but back then his voice was heard in different ways on the University of Hartford campus. He caused quite a stir as the editor of the student newspaper. As far as I know, UH never expected him to clear what he had to say with that administration. That was a long time ago. Jack’s still raising hell and making music. I’ll betcha Mr. Braff’s voice will be heard for years to come too. Given the education he’s getting at QU.
11 fred // Nov 20, 2007 at 1:18 pm
an article on the school papers website also makes a good point.. what about “breaking news” articles that are run close to press time? If said article needs an interview with an administrator, for the school reporter to have to submit prior questions to the PR guys via e-mail could cause a delay in the article going to press… possible not appearing in that following print edition…. If i read the article right (i skimmed it) at the end, it read
“Reached close to press time a university spokesperson was unable to respond.”
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