What if The Plainsman published uncensored photos of a streaker?
Should our editor be fired? Should our adviser be fired?
We don't believe so, but such content would cheapen our paper--just as it cheapened the East Carolinian when it published uncensored photos of a man streaking during ECU's Nov. 5, 2011, game against Southern Mississippi.
After a backlash against the paper, the university fired the well-liked student media adviser Paul Isom Jan. 4. The university has released a statement saying Isom's firing wasn't related to the nude photos. We don't believe this to be the entire truth.
This is about more than simply protecting ourselves as journalists and our papers as organizations. This is about the respect we as journalists have for our organizations and for the people who are involved.
We don't believe the paper and its leadership are innocent. The possibility of a First Amendment case, at this point, is speculation. What we do know is that the paper put itself--and obviously Isom--needlessly at risk.
We, as journalists who often recieve comments and letters strongly criticizing our decisions, know the editorial staff understood the possible consequences of their decision. They were asking for trouble and they got trouble.
We don't believe this should be put in the light of a valiant rights fight waged by student journalists against their oppressive university. It was an unnecessary reach for the wrong sort of buzz.
It was a reach that caused a man--who had no power to control the paper-- to lose his job.
When a paper makes that call--to run it or not--about risky material, they're standing with that material and saying, "This means something to us, and it should mean something to you." The East Carolinian has done itself a disservice by standing with cheap material.
Beyond being a bad decision, running the photos was bad journalism.There are more worthy ways of reporting the news than by including photos of a fully nude streaker.
The photo simply doesn't make the news more interesting. Readers of the East Carolinian would be well-aware that the streaker was nude. The photos don't add any element to the story in such a way that their omission would leave unanswered questions.
We think it's too bad the editors of the East Carolinian went with cheap, unnecessary material and not with respectable journalism.
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