"Technician Not Racist"

"Technician Not Racist"

In this pained editorial column by the Technician following Crisp's column and the burning of the Technician, the Technician's editorial staff tries to absolve itself of responsibility for inflaming the recent racial tensions on campus. The Technician claims that it has no responsibility for the content written on its columns page since individual columnists are free to express their own opinions and that those opinions are not representative of the Technician in general. In addition, the Technician falls back on established journalism codes of conduct to defend itself in its publishing of news media stories, which are almost always written in a neutral tone of voice. However, the Technician fails to defend itself on why a columnist like Crisp was hired and allowed to write and publish in the first place. In addition, the Technician fails to take responsibility for lack of editorial control over columnists like Crisp. The article obviously did not convince many African Americans of the Technician's racial neutrality and spurred Tony Williamson to create the Nubian Message in response.

The Technician Editorial Staff

"Technician Not Racist," The Technician vol. LXXIV no. 20 (September 28, 1992).

1992-09-28

Cheryl Dong

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Technician, in response to recent allegations of racism, would like to explain how newspapers operate. We hope this will clear up any misunderstandings and answer any accusations of purposeful bias.

Newspapers subscribe to a code of ethics that require all stories be reported in a fair, unbiased manner. However, as anyone familiar with the business will tell you, this is an ideal that is virtually unattainable. Because reporters are people, they have opinions that inevitably affect their reporting. But this doesn’t stop good reporters from trying to be as fair as they possibly can, or good newspapers from insisting on non-biased coverage.

Editorials are different. Editorials--the unsigned opinions that appear in this space--are what newspapers comment on the news they print. They give a newspaper a chance to voice its opinion.

Columns, which aren’t the same as editorials, make up the right-hand side of the editorial page under the editorial cartoon, which is also a “column” in itself. Columnists are charged with the job of deciphering information and making rational judgments about it. Columnists choose their own subjects and write about them in accordance to their own opinion. Editorial page editors try to ensure that columns espousing differing views of the same subject appear in order to give the reader a more balanced view.

There is no connection between columns, which are the work of individuals, and editorials, which are the voice of the newspaper itself.

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