Media Advisory Board unites student publications

In response to a number of debates concerning freedom of speech, the Committee on Student Life (CSL) suggested last spring that a student group form to monitor all the campus publications, and this Friday, CSL will meet again to discuss the issue further.

When it made the recommendation, CSL was unaware that a Media Advisory Board (MAB), which incorporates all University-funded student publications, already existed. Senior Sam Dangremond, who heads up MAB, said the group should not have the power to penalize other student publications and that it will not take on this role under his leadership. However, if censorship becomes a concern, he hopes the MAB will unite as a coalition for First Amendment rights.

"Once you censor one publication, you can censor them all," said Dangremond, the former editor-in-chief of The Primary Source, a publication which has faced censorship issues in the past. "Everyone's education suffers without freedom of the press." He feels student publications should be guaranteed freedom of speech as long as they do not break copyright laws, commit libel or incite imminent lawlessness.

At the time of the decision, CSL said the "Tufts community can only flourish if people adhere to certain basic principles of conduct: decency, tolerance, and mutual respect." It then "challenged the editorial boards of all campus publications to meet the highest standards of fair and responsible journalism" and suggested "a media committee be established to ensure that all campus publications have written editorial policies that are consistent with these standards." It had intended to include the editor-in-chiefs of each publication on the committee.

The student group would thus set the standard for journalism ethics at Tufts. Harry Bernheim, a professor and the co-chair of the CSL, said the group should decide, for instance, whether or not publications should be allowed to print anonymous letters. "Everyone should be held accountable for what they've written," Bernheim said.

Dangremond explained that the MAB currently has two main roles: to coordinate the use of the MAB office and equipment which publications share and to act as a resource where publications can turn to for help with technological skills.

This group, however, does not have the responsibility of overseeing or penalizing publications. Although the MAB used to hear complaints against publications, this practice ended four years ago. Regardless, members feel that MAB has already been effective in uniting the different publications.

"MAB has made all the publications more aware of one another and more sensitive to each other's concerns, and has provided a chance for like-minded students to share their vision of what a publication should or shouldn't be like," said Justin Race, the editor-in-chief of the Observer.

Dangremond said MAB does not have the infrastructure necessary to process complaints against student publications. The CSL, which currently hears these complaints, is a group with professors as members and a university counsel to advise it; therefore, CSL is equipped to handle due process, Dangremond said. The MAB, on the other hand, consists of only students.

However, Bernheim feels a media group could be effective even without the power to penalize. "You can't stop them from printing but you can subject them to ridicule [if they violate the standards]," Bernheim said.

In any case, if any standards for journalism were to be laid out, members of the MAB say they would like to be involved.

"If they are going to appoint an organization to do that, I think MAB is the right organization, because it's made up of your peers," Genna Sankin, an editor of Outbreath, the literary magazine. "The members of the MAB lab have more of a direct interest in any type of censorship of student publications because any type of censorship will affect them."

Problems arose last year when ThePrimary Source made two references in its humor section to student Iris Halpern, the leader of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM). Halpern filed a sexual harassment complaint against the Source, which appeared before the CSL before the charges were unanimously dropped.

However, in its December issue, the Source printed an anonymous letter to the editor, in which the writer claimed that Halpern had molested her. Halpern then filed 13 complaints _ including the charge that the publication had committed libel and retaliation for filing the original sexual harassment _ against each Source editor. The CSL heard all of the subsequent cases and the Source was acquitted of all charges