Public knowledge or public humiliation?
Should the school paper be able to publish the names of students who have gotten DUIs?
In late October of 2015, a friend of mine was arrested for DUI charges. This friend happened to also be a student at Pitt. Not only was she emotional and upset about the arrest and her mistake, it also created a lot of stress seeing as she is about to graduate and enter corporate America.
One late evening, that friend had found out that the complete story about her arrest was published in her very own school newspaper. How lovely right? At first, this may not seem like a big deal but let me continue.
The article contained her full name, her hometown, all of the charges she had received, detailed explanation of her driving, detailed explanation of how she performed on sobriety tests, and her blood alcohol content test results. Along with my friend there were two other students featured in the article. As the weeks went on, the news reports continued almost every week with more students and more detail.
Having your mistakes featured in a news article while you’re paying thousands in tuition to call your university “home” is not an ideal situation for any college student. While I understand this is a practice of “professional journalism” it is also morally and ethically wrong to post these types of news articles that are undoubtedly causing detriment to your own university’s students.
Publishing police and crime news is a standard journalistic practice and is done to inform readers of where activity took place as a safety precaution, but The Police Blotter that is published every week in this same newspaper informs readers of this news already. Not to mention, in the police blotter student’s identities are kept anonymous. This is a much more efficient way of relaying information than targeting students and making them feel small at the University they choose as their home away from home.
So why choose to ostracize students by publicizing these types of news stories that are making this information easily accesable for teachers, classmates, and potential employers to see? Not only does this make the student feel belittled, but it also could create an uncomfortable studying and living situation for them at their University feeling as if their reputation has been ruined.
Though the argument can be made, and was made, that these arrest articles are public knowledge and anyone has the ability to see the arrest report, the amount of detail and the article itself would not have been as readily available had the newspaper not published it on paper and online. Now, anytime an employer searches that specific student’s name the online article is right there to view.
The news articles of this type created a lot of uproar and backlash from students. My friend who was targeted by the school newspaper was so upset that a few students at the university went around and took all of the newspapers that had her article in it. They blacked out her name with sharpie and put most the newspapers back. One of the university’s professors was so angered by this that he photocopied the article, highlighted the student’s name, and sent it home to her parents anonymously. Later he was caught, but this proves that these types of articles are not only singling out students for their mistakes but also creating a hostile environment on campus among students AND GROWN ADULT PROFESSORS.
This story brings a very important issue to the playing field that needs to be addressed by universities everywhere and their newspapers. Is the idea of “professional journalism” more important than bettering your student’s futures and staying loyal to the people that call your university home?