There are innumerable lessons the Daily and Tufts other campus publications can learn from the discussions about the role and responsibility of college media outlets that several events this year have prompted. The Primary Source, the campus now-derecognized journal of conservative thought, has learned that conservatism should not be used to justify offensive content and that oversight is not a good enough excuse when hurtful words are published. This paper learned a similar lesson when we failed to keep a hateful groups Islamophobic advertisement from publication.
The overarching lesson of this year in Tufts media, however, is that the absence of a body or person charged with overseeing the maintenance of journalistic standards and ethical behavior a position that before last year was filled by a campus public editor is harmful to Tufts media organizations, as well as to their readers and listeners. Tufts needs a public editor again, and badly. Without someone to keep a critical eye on the Daily and its peer publications, outlets for students with an opinion on the matter have been reduced to outraged Facebook statuses, individual emails to publications, reactionary op-eds and conversations among friends that never make it to editorial meetings.
It has become clear that Tufts has gone too long without someone to fill the position that has fallen into obscurity over the past two years. Tufts media outlets have been forced to use individual responses as the only interaction they have with the Tufts community, a system that neither leads to a productive discussion about media ethics and standards nor lends an official ear to students with legitimate criticisms. As a community, we need someone to play the role of arbiter of ethical media practice. We need someone whose job it is to regularly comment on the state of Tufts media and give voice to the masses. We need someone to hold the Daily, the Observer, the Primary Source, WMFO, TUTV and all other organizations that claim to be voices of Tufts accountable. Criticism and thoughtful analysis of the role of these organizations must no longer come from anonymous online commenters or those with ties to a publication.
There is sufficient administrative support for an unbiased public editor to take the stage. But an Office of Campus Life advertisement campaign at the beginning of this year resulted in only two candidates, neither of whom was deemed capable of completing the job well by the Dean of Students Office. This reflects both the need for more extensive advertising for the position and the difficulty any university body will have in filling it with a candidate who is qualified enough to take on the role.
The responsibility of producing content acceptable for publication is not one to be taken lightly. As student media outlets, the Daily and its peers know that the written word or, in the case of WMFO and TUTV, the spoken word has impact. And because our employees are volunteers and busy students, of course mistakes get made. To learn from these mistakes, we need more than sporadic commentary from the aware and conscientious among Tufts undergraduates. We need someone who will take on the responsibility of speaking as the voice of reason, of knowing what constitutes responsible journalism better than we do, of mediating conflict between editorial staff members and their fellow students.
The Daily urges the Media Advocacy Board (MAB) in whatever form it takes next year, and under whoever takes its helm to jumpstart the search for a smart, dedicated and responsible public editor. As of now, the MABs only role is to maintain the computer lab it inhabits on the ground floor of Curtis Hall. If the MAB is to fulfill its full potential, it must request funding from the Tufts Community Union Senate to fund the position, and the Senates Allocations Board (ALBO) has a responsibility to provide the funding, though they declined to do so two years ago. It doesnt make sense for the money to come from anywhere else.
No one person can speak for Tufts as a whole or reflect the collective opinion of the student body. This was, presumably, the reason why ALBO declined to fund the position. But the journalistic dilemmas that face student publications cannot be faced alone even an attempt at giving a unified and comprehensive voice to criticism of our content would be worthwhile. The public editor need not speak for every single Tufts student. It would be their responsibility, however, to monitor the full spectrum of campus conversation online and otherwise and advise our staffs on the most responsible and fitting course of action when conflict arises. They would serve not as a reactionary tool but as a giver of advice, a voice of the student body when one is needed and a source of accountability.
