Medill students Aaron Gannon, Emmet Sullivan, Margaret Matray and Tricia Bobeda have sent out an e-mail, which is being widely forwarded, with a statement criticizing Lavine’s use of anonymous sources, and asking that he address students about the issue.
They’re seeking the digital signatures of Medill community members, who can e-mail savejournalismatmedill@gmail.com with their name and year if they wish to support the statement.
The four students also run the blog Journalists Speak, which has been aggressively covering the controversy.
Here’s the full statement:
Since beginning at Northwestern, we have been taught certain sacred rules in journalism. Failure to abide by these rules can and has resulted in punishment, from a failing grade to expulsion from the program.
The controversy surrounding Dean John Lavine has made this week a troubling one. We do not know if he fabricated the quotes in his letter to alumni or simply failed to properly attribute them, but we expect more from Dean Lavine, the head of our school.
We are disappointed with the lack of attention paid to students. Dean Lavine has so far failed to address his student body on this issue (as of Feb. 20, 2008, when this petition was written).
We fully support the faculty statement and are looking forward to hearing from the Undergraduate Medill Student Advisory Council. We, the undersigned students and alumni, still wish to identify our concerns. We hope that more students will join our petition in the coming days.
Dean Lavine has said that because his column in Medill magazine is a “personal letter,” he does not need to follow the same reporting style as a news story. We agree with the faculty statement that the magazine is “subject to the same standards as other publication venues.”
Dean Lavine, as a role model for our community, is responsible for upholding the elements of the Medill Integrity Code in all his published work.
We echo the faculty statement calling for Dean Lavine to provide notes or sources for his piece.
We hope the dean will address his students on the matter at hand. We feel we have been ignored.
In signing this letter, we believe the dean, the faculty, the alumni, the students and ALL members of the Medill community should come together, come to terms with the issue and use this unfortunate situation as a teachable moment in our journalism education. In our eyes, this has yet to happen.