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Feb
21
From Poynter Institute, a letter from John Lavine, dean of Northwestern’s Medill School, in Chicago:
In the middle of the controversy over two letters to the alumni that I wrote last year in Medill magazine, I want to make what for me is a very important point.
I have been in journalism for more than 40 years as a reporter, editor, publisher and educator. I do not make up quotes.
But I did exercise poor judgment, and I apologize for that. I used a quote from a student in a letter I wrote in the Spring 2007 issue of Medill without naming the student. I should have asked permission to use the student’s name with their comment about the IMC 303 class.
Although our alumni magazine has run unattributed direct and indirect quotes before, as your dean I must ensure that the magazine, as one of the many public faces of the School, should operate with the highest possible standards.
Medill faculty teach our students that journalism should be transparent. It is a mistake when I don’t set the best example I can. Just as our faculty set high classroom standards for students learning to be journalists, as dean I should exhibit those standards.
Read the rest at the above link. Here’s more from the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune piece emphasizes why attribution is so important in journalism. In contrast to that, some people who have written about Democratic presidential nominee candidate (and Illinois Senator) Barack Obama’s use of words from Massachusetts Governor and Obama friend, Deval Patrick, feel that political speeches are written under the guise of a different set of rules, a set of rules that allows borrowing and re-treads, often and maybe as a rule, without attribution.
But that’s wrong. If anything, we should be holding political speech – or at least the people who give the political speeches – to a higher standard. Why? Because the people speaking those words are asking us to award them with the highest award we can give to any American: our vote.
I wrote here what I thought about the Obama-Patrick borrowed phrases flap. I still feel the same way: he should have said, “I shouldn’t have done it, I apologize, attribution is the proper thing” rather than toss it off to being the words that a friend told him he could use and lack of attribution was an oversight. But he didn’t. So, whatever. Move on.
But as we move on, politicians, as they move on, and continue to seek to persuade us, should not be so dismissive of such oversights, nor should we. Using other people’s words as your own is wrong. Always has been, always will be. No matter what spin that rule is given.
Or who is spinning it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:53 pm February 21st, 2008 in Barack Obama, Media, Politics, Scandal, WH2008, Writing
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