Staff of Student Newspaper Quits After Advisor Says Breonna Taylor Wasn’t Murdered
“also demanded a reader and staff boycott of the News until Griffin is removed”
The narrative of Black Lives Matter must not be questioned. This also shows that if the mob can’t cancel you, they’ll cancel themselves in protest.
The College Fix reports:
Student newspaper staff quit en masse after advisor reportedly said Breonna Taylor wasn’t murdered
Should journalism advisors try to stop their student newspapers from publishing objectively false information?
Kenna Griffin is accused of trying to do that – and the result was the mass resignation of staff for the Washington Square News, a student newspaper funded by but editorially independent of New York University.
In a “letter from the editors” published Monday, the News laid out its grievances against Griffin, who joined as its advisor earlier this month, and demanded her firing as a condition of their return. (She’s employed by the university but continues working from Oklahoma, where she still teaches in the University of Oklahoma’s journalism school.)
The signatories – reportedly 43 out of about 50 newspaper staff – also demanded a reader and staff boycott of the News until Griffin is removed.
Many grievances focus on her perceived abrasive style – Griffin fired the editor-in-chief “without warning” soon after arriving – and illustrate the increasing gap between old-school journalism practices and newly woke newsrooms.
But some accuse Griffin, who is also president of the College Media Association, of racism precisely for observing best practices in journalism.
One of the incidents involve Griffin’s alleged attempt to stop the News from using the word “murder” to describe the death of Breonna Taylor. It was reporting on New York protests in response to a jury’s refusal to indict officers who killed the young black woman in a botched raid on her home:
An editor stood up to Dr. Griffin’s demands and refused to edit out the word “murder” from our article about Breonna Taylor’s murder at the hands of Louisville cops. Dr. Griffin demanded the Managing Editor discipline them, as she “didn’t want to have a full deal publicly.”
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Comments
Good for Griffin. I hope she gets a great new crew.
There is a decades-long tension here:
1) The student newspapers elect their editors/leaders. So, the people who get elected may reflect views popular with the student staff.
2) Student newspapers remain subject to the same liabilities and laws as all other media. If NYU owns the paper, they hold the liability. The cops involved in the Breonna Taylor episode have been cleared of crimes (with one exception.) That fact needs to be in any story. A phrased like “accused of murder, but then not indicted by a grand jury” might be appropriate journalism. Any conclusory label would just set up NYU for a lawsuit from the police falsely labeled by them.
Student government and student newspapers suffer from self-selection. Sensible students don’t apply.
Parents of students at schools like NYU suffer from foolish selection.
@ The University of Alabama, the student newspaper is called ‘The Crimson & White’. It’s also called ‘The Crap & Wipe’ for the worthlessness of the paper.