I sat in the college community living office, waiting to be questioned…Campus authorities called me in to question me about an article I planned to write for the college newspaper. I was 21 years old, it was my last semester of college, and I was the newspaper’s co-editor in chief.
Just a week prior, a student hung a Swastika flag in his dorm window during a sensitive time – the Night of Broken Glass. We talked about the student’s actions as a newspaper staff, planning to publish a story explaining what the heck this student was thinking.
A newspaper interview led to my own interview.
I spoke with the student who hung the flag, and I intended to protect his / her identity by keeping the source anonymous. To obtain additional sources for the story, I also spoke with a Jewish English professor and a professor who was head of the Jewish Student Association.
Somehow, the head of community living found out we were writing this story – let’s call him “Jack.” So, my resident advisor told me Jack needed to see me in his office to chat about the article.
Call me a goody-two shoes, but I never really got in trouble in class, on campus, or with school authorities. I was more confused than anything.
Stop the press
Leading up to our meeting, I was slightly nervous. Why did they call me in? I knew I had to say yes to the meeting, otherwise it would look like we were hiding something. We were never a secretive student newspaper, so they couldn’t really dig up anything crazy on us.
Here’s the thing: as a newspaper staff, we setup a new spot right in the middle of the newspaper’s front page with a photo of the flag hanging in the student’s window wrapping around the story outline. HOWEVER, we decided maybe we could take this story in a different direction. Community living didn’t know this, so they made a lot of assumptions. Alright, back to the night I was called in for a meeting…
My newspaper advisor called me shortly after I stepped into the meeting. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I ignored the call.
A few minutes into us talking, Jack asked me to send him a copy of the story before it went to print. In my head, I thought, What the heck?? No way! Sending a story to someone outside of the newspaper staff is a huge no-no in journalism. He wasn’t my advisor looking to check for grammatical errors. Why would we give up our content just because Jack was afraid of what we would print?
I hadn’t even written the story and they already asked me to hand it over. Somehow I managed to get out of there without much damage. I spoke with my advisor after the meeting. He later spoke with the head community living on his own, someone above Jack. The head of community living apologized for Jack’s interrogation, and all was well.
The real story
We wound up taking the story in an entirely different direction before I even met with Jack, writing about symbols and tying in the flag’s meaning and timing. It was nearly 3 or 4 days before the newspaper issue was set to go to print, and we changed the tone entirely to turn the situation into something educational.
Even though we didn’t use quotes from the student interview, the story required a lot of planning and organization. I’m thankful for the opportunity to cover such a different topic – the updated article focused on thinking before we speak, how symbols affect the way we communicate.
To read the finished article, click here. It’s a long article, and this was before we really knew the best practice of adding headers and lots of photos to online articles.
When you’re finished with the article, come back here to Twentysomething Vision and let me know what you think.
In the end, the student said he / she didn’t mean anything by the flag. The student wasn’t thinking about the consequences, but rather living in the moment with friends. It’s not an excuse. It’s not acceptable. But it makes us think carefully about our actions – what we say, what we do, and how that will affect someone.
The whole situation was an out-of-body experience at the time, but it made for some good reflections later on! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.