Category: Feature articles

Greg Steinberger of the Hillel Foundation argues that the decision by an independent student newspaper to accept an ad from a Holocaust denier shows the need for a thorough review of the role and responsibilities of campus papers, especially in an Internet age.

In the current era of student newspapers, traditional print media is moving further onto the World Wide Web.  As a result, these newspapers have deployed social media, chat rooms, and open comment forums to convey news or to open avenues of discussion through blogs, twitter, video, and commenting sections.

The role of the campus newspaper is changing, and not always for the better.  It could be said that some of these new tools are being introduced without proper review of their impact on the community or of the range of policies needed to ensure a thoughtful and articulate presentation of the news and an engaged conversation with readership.

Who and what makes up the audience for the online independent campus media? What obligations does a student editor have to the campus?  When there are competing core values in play, how does a paper respond? 

These are just a few questions a campus editor and publisher might ask as they take on their positions of leadership.

The reach of the independent campus student press is changing.  Today’s papers, like the Badger Herald at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, encompass readership that is broader and no longer bound by the physical attributes of the campus. 

Student papers often worry about free speech, numbers of daily hits, maximizing their financial goals, and designing Web sites that drive traffic to their sites.  Yet this new media requires bold thinking and both an internal review by the paper of its policies, roles and obligations to the campus, and an external discussion by its community about the role of the paper.

Without such a conversation, the campus newspaper is likely to be transformed into just another media outlet. It will no longer be based on the campus, save for the location of its office or the makeup of its staff.

The recent situation in which the Jewish community found itself after the Badger Herald ran a Holocaust denial ad in its online edition is a case in point. It clearly indicates the challenges the campus public has when engaging its student paper.

At the time of the ad, the Jewish community already felt duress from anti-Semitic posts on prior articles on the paper’s Web site.  We began to monitor the comment sections and attempted to open a conversation with the Badger Herald regarding the hostile posting environment.  We learned that the Badger Herald had not monitored the comment section during the time of the fraternity story, but that when they learned of the situation, they began to monitor the comment sections.

Yet during the time in which the Bradley Smith ad ran in the paper, anti-Semitic posting continued to take place, presumably including comments made anonymously by what appeared to be supporters of Smith.  An anonymous comment was posted as recently as the week of March 7, saying: “Jews were the world’s worst predators of the 20th century.”

It was troubling to learn that comments do not automatically appear on the Web site immediately after being written.  The system requires that editors or section heads at the paper have to push their publication to the Web site.  That means that when anti-Semitic comments were being posted online, they were being allowed either as an editorial choice, by mistake, or because staff from various sections of the paper used an inconsistent ad hoc approach to determining which comments should be posted.

It is fair to question what policy exists to train the staff to read and publish comments, and to wonder how they determine what acceptable or unacceptable speech is.  Do they treat all sections of the paper equally?  Can the editors handle the sheer volume of posts a controversial article might cause?   Can a student paper — strapped for cash and student employees’ time — reasonably monitor large volumes of comments?

Comments on articles in cyberspace are easier and live longer than in a traditional medium.  Readers can contribute to the discussion the day a story runs or for many months, as long as the article is still available on the Web site.  As a result there is an exponential challenge to monitor comments.

On the 8th day of the ad’s run, the Badger Herald decided to publish their editorial denouncing the Holocaust-denial ad as a revolting and hateful act, yet justified the printing of the ad in the name of free speech. Their intention seemed to be to shine a light on anti-Semitic activists and to inspire the campus community to see the ad, read it and reject it.

This was a mistake.

The paper failed in its understanding of the space in which its Web site exists.  They certainly should have known that a Web site that receives several hundred thousand hits regularly was not being read solely by the campus community and that those likely to read the articles and comment on them were not on the campus.

During this time, the campus Jewish community began to organize.  We responded to the Holocaust denial by exposing it for what it was.  We attempted to speak with the editors of the paper, and while we worked to educate the campus we also understood that we were forced to respond.

The Jewish community faced several options:  to enter into a debate with anti-Semites (which we rejected); to protest the paper and show our dismay; or work to constructively fix what is and remains broken at the Badger Herald and perhaps to a lesser extent at the other campus paper, the Daily Cardinal.

Students planned a campus rally to remember the Holocaust; they worked with the Dean of Students to organize an ethics panel on journalism in campus newspapers; and they continued to engage in conversation with the Badger Herald staff and advisors as we sought a public apology for the pain the paper was causing through its lax policies and practices.  We hoped such efforts would result in quick and immediate changes and assurances that the paper would better serve the campus community.

Student newspapers regularly publish stories and editorials that are critical of the practices of the UW administration and student government as well as other student organizations on campus. Yet from February 18 to March 4, when Hillel and the Dean of Students office hosted a public forum on journalistic ethics, the Badger Herald failed to admit its many mistakes.  What they offered on March 4 was the explanation that they made some mistakes and that committees were being formed to review policies. This only furthered the perception that the Badger Herald was slow to move and not taking the communities concerns as seriously as they needed to.

Nearly three and half weeks after the ad first was published, the Badger Herald board published an open letter to the campus apologizing for its actions and speaking to their policy challenges.   They have committed to new policies by the end of the term.  Such action is welcome, but it is future policies and deeds that are critical.

The Badger Herald should be taken at its word that it will be conducting a thorough review of its best practices.  Yet we, and they, should be concerned that they reach these conclusions and make changes sooner than later.

Waiting to the end of the semester is a problem.

As the term ends, the leadership and staff of the paper will change and so will the opportunity to act quickly and learn from this situation.  Furthermore, a newspaper has to be published every day.  I would argue that the paper has not yet demonstrated that it can responsibly handle the comment section of the Web site. As a result they are only one mistake away from a new campus crisis.

The paper might be better served by suspending the anonymous posting option to see what effect it has on the open discussion. Yes, the volume of comments will likely go down, but many other newspapers have made similar decisions and thoughtful conversation appears to have ensued.

What might a paper do when wide-spread concern about a story, or practice, or editorial decision is recognized by its community — particularly a minority community that has felt maligned?

First,  a newspaper might consider meeting with community leaders to listen and to try to comprehend what is going on in their community.  They might also consider seeking out more information on the matters at hand.  Certainly Bradley Smith was a known entity, having attempted to take out hundreds of ads in campus newspapers over the last two decades.

In the short term the Badger Herald has taken a substantial hit in the eyes of the reading public.  Can the paper be trusted to accurately and effectively convey the news and editorial opinion to it readers?

Second, the Badger Herald staff and operations are under greater public scrutiny as they editorialize about the goings-on around campus.

Third, the paper, I hope, will go through a process of reviewing several of its policies and work with professionals in the field, as well as Badger Herald alumni and faculty from the journalism school to implement policies that best represent their convictions and best serve the UW campus.

I believe a commitment to a third party review and audit of best practices would better spell out the strengths and weaknesses of the Badger Herald and perhaps ensure a quick and speed resolution of the problems they identified over the past four weeks.

The situation reminds us that student newspapers live in an unconventional space in the world of journalism and that perhaps their online editions are evolving to something other than a student publication.  Perhaps they are now student papers, in that they are run by students, but their readership at least online is larger.  The stakes are higher and the effect of a misstep that much greater.

So what might be done to ensure that a campus paper and its online edition have a direct and ongoing relationship to the campus that they serve?  Student journalists would be well served to consider that they have three independent and possibly competing, core responsibilities:

•  To clearly understand the parameters of the First Amendment
•  To use the student newspaper as an incubator for young journalists 
•  To recognize their role, responsibility and obligation to the campus as whole.

How does a paper understand and weigh each of these values?  Are they equal in concern? Does one outweigh the other?  Can they be determined by the editorial board or in dialogue with the campus?

Perhaps a student paper would benefit from a broader range and number of advisors.  It seems common practice for papers to have an advisor who might help it understand the issues of the First Amendment and also the general management of a newspaper.  But it is unclear to me to what degree these papers have advisors that are responsible for ensuring these other areas of responsibility are being considered and that the perspective and concerns of the campus and the student body are also being protected and considered at an equal (or near equal) level of concern.

In addition, the campus might be well served by a collaborative effort by the Dean of Students’ office, student government, the School of Journalism, and perhaps some partnership with housing and admissions to create an independent Web site that strives to create a campus discussion on issues brought up in the paper.

This site could be a place where readers could come and view the subject matter and open discussion — but only students, faculty, staff of the university could participate in the discussion.  This situation could carve out some kind of campus-wide, thoughtful, meaningful blog that is a counter weight to the campus newspapers, which in turn might help create a more nuanced and balanced relationship between the campus student media outlets and its audience.

I think the adoption of these three core values and the development of some campus-wide Internet discussion space would have a lasting effect on the campus newspaper.

Such an approach will help engender a genuine conversation while still helping inform an editorial board, train future journalists and best serve our larger campus community.

GREG STEINBERGER holds a Master’s degree in social work from the Sol Drachler Program in Jewish Communal Leadership at the University of Michigan. He has worked for Hillel for 14 years, the past ten years as the Executive Director of the University of Wisconsin Hillel Foundation.  Greg received the 2002 Richard M. Joel Exemplar of Excellence award for his work to transform the UW Hillel Foundation into one of national recognition and excellence.

In 2010 Greg Steinberger and his wife Rabbi Andrea Steinberger helped open The Barbara Hochberg Center for Jewish Students Life.  The Barbara Hochberg Center is the first Green Hillel building in North America and home to over 5,000 Jewish students who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

JOURNALISM AND HOLOCAUST DENIERS

On February 22, 2010, the Badger Herald, an independent student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, accepted a paid advertisement for its online site from well-known Holocaust denier Bradley Smith, after the newspaper had posted and then removed anti-Semitic comments from its online stories about a fraternity on the UW campus.  The paid ad linked to Smith’s Web site.  The Herald’s ad sparked a heated controversy, and generated condemnation from many students and others on campus. Jewish students demanded that the ad be taken down.

However, the paper refused to remove the ad, based on its libertarian commitment to a free marketplace of ideas and its belief that students and academics on campus would quickly see Smith for what he is – a non-credible Holocaust denier.

On March 4, students and academics gathered on campus to debate the Herald’s editorial position and to talk more generally about the issue of journalism ethics and controversial speech.  Among the participants on the evening’s panel were Stephen J. A. Ward, director of this Web site and the Center for Journalism Ethics, Prof. Lewis Friedland of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SOJMC), Jason Smathers, a graduate student at the SOJMC and managing editor of the Badger Herald, and Nick Penzenstadler, another SOJMC student and publisher of the Herald.

This section opens up editorial space for some of these participants to express their positions. Prof. Friedland begins with his reflections after the March 4 meeting. We also add links to previously published columns by Smathers and Penzenstadler. 

The intent of this section is to probe more deeply into the reasoning of the dissenting views, and to explore what can be learned from this dispute for the future.

The First Amendment and Moral Responsibility

by Lewis Friedland

March 8, 2010

On March 4, I participated in a “Journalism, Ethics, and Sensitivity” forum on the continuing controversy surrounding the Badger Herald’s continuing acceptance of advertising from Bradley Smith, an anti-Semite who denies the existence of the Holocaust.  I was hoping that the forum, sponsored by Hillel and well moderated by University of Wisconsin Dean of Students Lori Berquam, would shed new light on the events, clarify the legal, moral, and ethical issues at stake, and lead to some initial steps toward reconciliation between the Herald and its staff and the UW Jewish community.  Unfortunately, while I left with a better sense of some of the issues and the actors, I now have more questions than answers.

The basic issues and some fundamental facts are clear enough. The Badger Herald is an independent student newspaper, not edited by the University of Wisconsin. Bradley Smith became aware of the Herald because of the Herald’s coverage of an incident approximately three weeks earlier, involving the AEPi, a Jewish fraternity on the UW campus. The Herald’s anonymous comments section responding to that coverage included statements calling for a “final solution” to the AEPi  problem, and suggested the fraternity should be “turned into an oven,” as well as comments about “Coasties,” a not very veiled, negative colloquial reference to Jewish students. Indeed, Smith, in a Feb. 18 post on his own blog, commented that he learned about the term “Coasties” from the Herald comments, and that his organization had posted an ad on the Herald’s Web site.  The Badger Herald accepted the ad from Smith. The advertising director for the Herald says that there was not adequate staff to review all ads, so the ad could not be thoroughly reviewed before it was accepted. Jason Smathers, Herald editor, says that he was not aware of the ad for six days after posting (this from the forum on March 4).

Let’s stop right here. The Herald’s AEPi coverage had undeniably generated anti-Semitic comments from UW students. The Herald staff, including Jason Smathers, was aware of this, and indeed engaged in discussion with both Mr. Greg Steinberger, director of the UW Jewish student organization, Hillel, and Dean Lori Berquam. So, purely and simply, the Herald and its entire leadership and advisors understood that there were, at minimum, verbal threats to UW students (“turned into an oven”) based in prior coverage. Presumably, Smathers, who has voiced great confidence in the rationality of UW students, would not think that these spontaneous comments were rational, and, indeed, he repudiated them.

So what would lead the Herald to think that running a Holocaust denial ad from someone who was attracted by its coverage of the AEPi incident would not further inflame the situation on campus, a situation that it had directly contributed to?

Smith is one of the leaders of the Holocaust denial movement in the U.S., and has been since 1983. The express mission of his “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust” is to disseminate the Holocaust denial message to U.S. college students. In other words, Smith’s purpose is to recruit students to his point of view and, presumably, to enlist some of them in his movement.  He relies on student naiveté and lack of knowledge about the Holocaust. In a 2004 lecture to the Institute for Historical Review and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, Smith said that his stump campus speech is constructed as simply as possible, “to set the issues up in a way that could not really be debated.” He refers to “the gas chamber hoax.” Among his statements: “What is it about sadomasochism that gives it such appeal among so many Jews?”  Smith has publically acknowledged that his views and those of other Holocaust deniers are likely to lead to violence against Jews, saying that “[telling[] the truth about the gas chambers…will result in Arab fanatics having yet one more moral justification for killing innocent, unarmed Jews.”

When Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held an international Holocaust denial conference in December 2006, the event drew neo-Nazis and anti-Semites from around the world, including former KKK leader David Duke. Bradley Smith was prominently in attendance.  So no one should claim that they were unaware of who he is.  I could go on (I urge anyone who wants Smith’s resume in one place to go the site of the Anti-Defamation League ).

Of course — and this is the real point — all of this information is readily available on the Internet, with the simplest Google search.  Anyone reading a newspaper or listening to public radio, or paying a moderate amount of attention to the news in December 2006, would have heard of the Iranian conference.  Is it really possible that UW-trained  journalists, when faced with the possibility of placing an ad for a notorious, international Holocaust denier, didn’t think to use Google? That they didn’t smell something bad?  That no red flags at all went up?  Did the Herald’s advisors not know this?  Not care? Did they urge the staff to check?

Thursday night at the UW forum, Herald editor Smathers admitted that the Herald advertising policy was loose and indeterminate, and that the paper was going to conduct a thorough review.  I’m glad that the Herald is doing this, of course.  But I’m deeply disturbed by his defense of the Herald’s actions – which centered on Smith’s right to free expression. While I don’t doubt Smathers’ or his staff’s sincerity, I believe that the Herald’s legal understanding of the First Amendment is false and its ethical stance towards the campus Jewish community is even more troubling.

First, let’s look at the legal understanding.  Smathers and the paper’s staff have consistently invoked the First Amendment as the reason why they cannot take down an ad that they admit is false and malicious. It should be noted that the Herald grounds for its decision are constantly shifting. Smathers, in an email to Mr. Steinberger of Hillel on February 25, said that he didn’t know the ad was running, but if he had, and known the content, the board of directors would have run it anyway.

Another explanation offered March 3 goes: We made a mistake in putting it up (failure to review, lax policy) but once we put it up, we cannot take it down, despite knowing it to be untrue and despite the implicit admission, at least at Thursday’s forum, that if they had known (e,g, had minimal procedures, common sense, and taken the time and 3 minutes on the Internet to find out) they would not have put it up in the first place. So, once a known falsehood is published in their paper as an ad, it cannot be taken down on First Amendment grounds.

This reasoning is fallacious on multiple grounds. First, the First Amendment does guarantee Smith the right to publicize his views freely, and it does give the Herald the right to publicize Smith’s viewpoint if it so chooses. No one that I have encountered contests this legal right. But Smith’s speech is commercial speech, and the Herald is both a commercial enterprise and a publisher. The same First Amendment that guarantees Smith’s rights and the Herald’s right to publish, guarantees the Herald’s right not to publish. Both are true at the same time.

The First Amendment protects the Herald’s right to not offer itself as an amplifying forum for pro-Nazi propaganda. In publishing this material, and, more important, in continuing to publish it, the Herald is making a choice as a publisher to effectively say to its reading public: We believe that these views are worthy of public consideration. They are ideas that are subject to valid debate in the public sphere.

That is the real effect of the Herald’s First Amendment defense.  By choosing to publish, the Herald is, if not endorsing Smith’s views, validating them as a significant public concern; and of course, this is precisely Smith’s goal.

It is also, of course, precisely what is so offensive to many in the campus Jewish community (including myself). Listening to Smathers and publisher Nick Penzenstadtler as well as several Herald staffers who spoke, I believe that, in fact, they do not recognize the harm and hurt that they have caused. And this goes to the heart of the decision. The Herald has acted with reckless disregard toward the campus community as a whole and towards the Jewish community in particular.

They do not understand that the First Amendment is not a shield from moral responsibility, and that, indeed, given their right not to publish, they are effectively certifying ads as presenting views that are worthy of consideration, i.e. within the pale of reasonable debate. It is an amoral response, hiding behind a poorly constructed understanding of the First Amendment. In effect, the Herald is saying: We have let a toxin loose in our community. We either weren’t aware that we were doing it (it just slipped through), or we were aware that we were doing it (we would have published it anyway).

But in either case, whatever harmful effects the toxin has, we are not responsible. In fact, because a debate has developed, and the toxin may have created some immunity response, we are committing an act of public service. If someone is harmed by this toxin, that’s the price that (we have decided) the community has to pay.

As a professor of journalism, I’m not sure if I’m more disappointed with the failure of reason here or the failure of ethics, but I am certain that there is a failure of both. The Herald equates stubbornness with defense of the First Amendment, and moral harm with public good. Both views indicate a failure on our part to teach them the difference.

LEWIS FRIEDLAND is Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Department of Sociology (Affiliated), University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he directs the Center for Communication and Democracy.  He teaches and conducts research on theory of the public sphere and civil society, the impact of new communication technology on society and community, social networks, community structure, public television, and qualitative and social network research methods.   Friedland received the Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University (1985) and his A.B from Washington University in St. Louis (1974).

Friedland’s  most recent book (with Carmen Sirianni) is The Civic Renewal Movement (Kettering Foundation Press, 2005).  He has also authored Public Journalism: Past and Future (Kettering Foundation Press, 2003).  He is co-author with  Sirianni of Civic Innovation in America: Community Empowerment, Public Policy, and the Movement for Civic Renewal (University of California Press 2001) and is co-founder with Sirianni of the Civic Practices Network (www.cpn.org), the first major website on civic renewal, established in 1994.   In addition, he is the author of Covering the World: International Television News Services (Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1992) and more than 40 monographs, book chapters, and articles on community and civic life, public journalism, public television, new communications technologies and democracy, and international communication. Friedland has conducted  research on civic journalism for the Pew Charitable Trusts, conducted case studies of public journalism for the Kettering Foundation , and consulted for the Ford Foundation on the development of new programs on communication and democracy. He has consulted with newspapers, public television stations, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s National Center for Outreach.

As a documentary producer and executive producer he has won national awards, including the du Pont-Columbia Silver Baton, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold, Society of Professional Journalists National Award, Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, and others.

Current research interests include modeling the media and civic ecologies of local communities and developing civic mapping software and methods that can be used in a wide variety of community and journalism settings. He is Principal and Managing Partner of Community Knowledgebase, LLC, a community network software company which holds an SBIR contract with the U.S. Department of Education for development civic mapping curricula and  software for American high schools, and is developing the next generation of software for local newsrooms in partnership with the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

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