(Required reading for any journalists in a campus environment, including university-licensed public media…)
Seeking leads from sources whose stories haven’t yet become public is a routine reporting practice.
That’s why reporters — as part of an unsettling package of news stories about how the University of Illinois allowed professors found culpable for sexual harassment to resign quietly without creating a record of wrongdoing — invited readers to submit their own confidential news tips about other cases of sexual misconduct at the Champaign-Urbana campus.
The university’s response was anything but routine.
Because one of the lead reporters, Rachel Otwell of NPR Illinois, works out of the University of Illinois campus in Springfield, the university insisted that any information about sexual misconduct involving UI employees or students would have to be disclosed to the campus Title IX office — even if the sources requested anonymity.
By designating NPR Illinois journalists as “responsible employees” for purposes of Title IX compliance, the university made it a firing offense for a journalist to refuse to divulge the identity of a source who comes forward as a victim of rape or sexual harassment.
The predicament faced by reporters at UI was disturbing, but not unique.
Last fall, award-winning journalist Dan Malone was reprimanded for not notifying his employer, Tarleton State University, when the reporters he advises at Texan News Service began hearing complaints that a history professor was harassing students. Although the news service promptly published a series of stories disclosing the allegations — which the university was already investigating anyway — Tarleton administrators insisted that Malone was obligated as a “responsible employee” to make a redundant report.
As more and more universities become home to high-end investigative reporting labs, journalists invariably will clash with image-sensitive administrators, particularly when the reporting spotlight shines inward toward the campus itself.
In the professional world, journalists can count on vigorous and well-established legal protections that prevent government authority figures from searching their newsrooms, demanding the identities of their sources, or retaliating for unflattering coverage. On college campuses, however, journalists cannot confidently assume that the law will come to their aid when the source of adversity is the agency that issues their paychecks.
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College media labs may increasingly clash with their universities – Poynter.