College Controversy

College Newspaper Fires Controversial Writer

By Joe Prebich, 9-18-05

Where does the line between unethical and simply distasteful get drawn in journalism? When radical views are expressed and the public is offended should someone take the blame? Recently this, and as well as many other questions that surround journalism and opinion columns have blasted to the surface at the University of North Carolina college newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel.

What happened was a columnist, Jillian Bandes, wrote an op/ed article that was a satire piece, but to many readers came across as merely racist and inappropriate. Underlying this debate is the main point that after the article ran; the sources that the writer used turned around and alleged that their quotes were taken out of context.

And on those grounds, the editor of the paper, Chris Coletta, facing criticism from all angles, took action and fired Bandes. Now there is a fight going on over, among other things, sourcing. Bandes feels that the sources she quoted simply disagreed with her writing, and maintains that she did not inaccurately represent their views.

But, Colleta argues that Bandes took the quotes for her article out of context and that was what justified her being fired. He contends that it was not the views she expressed that led to her being fired, but the unethical reporting methods that she used to express those views.

And so herein lay the question, if the source doesn't agree with the story do we cave? Assuming that there were no breeches of journalistic ethics, does a paper have the right to fire a writer for writing about a touchy subject? And where does the fact that this was not a news article but an opinion column fit into this whole debate?

This debate can be followed at the Romenesko blog , where you can follow the correspondence that has been going on over the column, Bandes, Coletta, the newspaper, and thepublic.

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