WARNING! THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS GRAPHIC EXPRESSIONS OF RIDICULE, PLUS IMAGES OF NAKED DISGUST REGARDING BELOVED UNDERGRADUATE PIETIES, AND SO MIGHT NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR EMOTIONALLY FRAGILE INHABITANTS OF WILDLY OVERPRICED UNIVERSITIES WITH HABITUALLY DEFEATED FOOTBALL TEAMS.
Dear Northwestern:
Hi? How ya been? Thriving, I know. That new music center? Fan-tastic.
I’m good, thank you for asking. Old now. But hanging on. Still cranking out a column, just like I did for The Daily Northwestern in the early ’80s.
Sorry I haven’t written in, gee, 37 years. But I’ve been busy, working. In the real world. That’s what you do in the real world. You work.
At a newspaper, in my case. Which isn’t easy. Readers don’t always like what I write. Barack Obama once called and yelled at me. Last week my son’s old kindergarten teacher wrote a nasty letter. You need a hard shell, and to focus on your goal: telling a good story.
You know what was a good story? Former Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions coming to Northwestern’s Evanston campus Nov. 5 to speak, or try to. It was difficult, with protesters pounding on doors and breaking windows, tussling with campus cops. More evidence that the Left can have the same intolerant authoritarian tendencies as the Right.
The Daily covered the event, which is what newspapers do. They cover events.
None of this would have been noteworthy . . . until The Daily clawed back the protesters’ names and issued an apology that instantly became notorious for its craven capitulation.
The Daily admits to covering the Sessions protests, then concedes: “We recognize that we contributed to the harm students experienced.”
What harm? The harm of having your public actions documented?
“Some protesters found photos posted to reporters’ Twitter accounts retraumatizing and invasive,” the mea culpa continues. “Those photos have since been taken down. On one hand, as the paper of record for Northwestern, we want to ensure students, administrators and alumni understand the gravity of the events that took place Tuesday night. However, we decided to prioritize the trust and safety of students who were photographed.”
Isn’t that what Counseling and Psychological Services is for?
Worse follows:
“Some of our staff members who were covering the event used Northwestern’s directory to obtain phone numbers for students beforehand and texted them to ask if they’d be willing to be interviewed. We recognize being contacted like this is an invasion of privacy.”
Kill me now. I know The Daily operates independently of the school. But shame corrupts. It’s still staffed by NU students, who should know better. I feel like running my Northwestern diploma through the shredder and mailing the confetti to the president’s office. I worked hard for that degree. What is it worth now?
Here’s an irony. The protesters whose names The Daily yanked back are spared the buzzsaw of social media. While The Daily staff who signed the confession are now open to well-deserved ridicule.
Real journalists are aghast.
“Incredibly troubling” wrote Maggie Haberman of the New York Times.
“Appalling ignorance of the basics of news-gathering,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau.
The good news is that most shame fades — trust me on that one — and perhaps this will be part of the education.
Hoping to find out, I emailed, texted and phoned The Daily editor-in-chief, Troy Closson, invading his privacy. Yes, I risk re-traumatizing the young man, a valued former Sun-Times intern, and apologize for that. He didn’t get back to me anyway, but did make statements on Twitter, where he stood by The Daily’s reporting, sort of, adding “Our statement addressed some legitimate areas of growth we noticed in our reporting, but also over-corrected in others.”
College is a challenging time. But it’s supposed to be the challenge of toughening yourself to face the world as it is, in all its unfairness. Not the challenge of sealing yourself off in your own little crib of self-regard, wrapped in a soft blankie of privilege, demanding that life fluff your pillows while you practice the yowls of grievance you’ll emit whenever your delicate skin is brushed by the gnarled hand of reality.
Space dwindles. If this is an ageist micro-aggression — a term I heard a recent NU grad use in sincerity — then I own the sin.
Maybe I’m behind the times. With newspapers fading, maybe demand for skills such as asking questions then sharing the result and taking the consequences has also faded. Perhaps Medill now emphasizes turning out equivocating corporate shills and candor-challenged public spokespeople to produce the kind of limp, pathetic, moral abdication offered by the staff of The Daily Northwestern. Maybe it’ll someday become a marketing tool and point of pride for all involved.
But I doubt it.
Thanks for listening. Go Cats!
Neil Steinberg
Medill School of Journalism
Class of 1982
