Professor Charlie Moskos, who died Saturday, was widely cited by journalists and scholars for his expertise on the sociology of the armed forces, and was an influential figure within the military itself. Here’s how people at Northwestern and across the country are remembering him:
Charlie excelled as a scholar, teacher, mentor and in the quality of his friendships. While I treasure all Charlie’s gifts, it is his friendship and loyalty I will miss most.
– Aldon Morris, interim chair of Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Charlie had the kind of career at Northwestern that legends are made of, except in his case the stories of having taught tens of thousands of students with that perfect mix of rhythm and rigor are no exaggeration! The sociology department will miss him dearly. He is irreplaceable.
– Mary Pattillo, Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
Despite his success and notoriety, Charlie remained a patriotic, humble man who deeply believed in the virtue of public service for its own sake. He frequently lunched with four-star generals and members of Congress, but never let that swell his head.
– Phillip Carter, Washington Post military affairs writer and U.S. veteran
He had a very generous spirit and was always ready to laugh at himself. The one subject, in my experience, that he considered No Laughing Matter was the excellence of Greek-Americans, as compared with any other subset of humanity. As Ilca Hohn Moskos said in her message, “He was an academic, but not pretentious, funny, but not silly.” A very good man.
For those of us who served, there was simply no one else like him. He was analytical but personal, dispassionate but caring, and above all, a respected, thoughtful friend to so many of us in the military. I first met him at a conference at West Point in the early 1970’s, read almost everything he wrote, and I continued to see him periodically and correspond occasionally for over three decades. He truly had an impact on the military, and he gave many of us the reassurance that someone out there knew us, cared about us, and could help see our best interests as a nation and a military were looked after.
– Gen. Wesley Clark
Charles was a remarkable man, a renowned scholar who repeatedly offered thoughtful advice and thought-provoking ideas on the challenges with which we have grappled over the year.
– Gen. David H. Petraeus, commanding general in Iraq
We don’t talk about journalism awards much — seriously, wouldn’t you rather read about cute animals? — but today the Society of Professional Journalists named this site one of the top three student Web sites in the country, and also named Derek Thompson as the best online student columnist.
Earlier this year, NBN took home eight regional SPJ awards for its opinion, news, feature, in-depth and sports reporting.
NBN is also currently one of five finalists for the National Online Pacemaker Awards, considered the top prize in college journalism. The winner is announced this fall.
Elsewhere in campus media this year: Regionally, fashion magazine Stitch earned second place for best student magazine from SPJ. NNN also won several regional SPJ awards for its broadcast reporting, in addition to SportsNight’s College Emmy. NNN also won Best Newscast from the Illinois News Broadcasters Association; WNUR News won first place for Radio Newscast and and Radio Hard Program. The Daily Northwestern won 11 awards at the Illinois College Press Association, including first place for best daily college newspaper.
Contrary to what many at Medill might hold in their hearts and minds, the founder of the popular political blog DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas, thinks traditional media has prevented the masses from gaining a voice.
“The reason that media outlets are in trouble right now is because the technology now gives everybody a voice, and nobody sits there, and nobody has to wait for permission from some self-appointed gatekeeper to play a role or participate,” he said in an interview last week before his Tuesday evening speech at Ryan Auditorium in Tech.
Though as he admits, “I would not exist ten years ago,” it’s still an among-the-masses perspective from an expert at the very kind of media that drags down traditional newspaper revenue.
Here’s what he had to say about the pre-Internet Fourth Estate:
Back inside the journalist’s bubble, Eric Alterman took a deep New Yorker-style look at the new media world, and concluded in a March 31 piece:
“And so we are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism.”
Also over break, the Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner griped via an interview with author Richard Longworth that local newspapers aren’t properly helping Midwesterners deal with or understand the global context of their economic troubles. Among the culprits?
“Newspapers are failing” at their task, Longworth writes, and one reason is a report issued by the “once responsible journalism school at Northwestern University, urging papers to draw readers by stressing local news. . . . All over the Midwest, local news, no matter how trivial, is squeezing out the global coverage that readers need to make sense of their world.”
Before you wonder what Dean Lavine’s reply would be, Miner writes it for him:
Unfortunately, even papers that do try to tell this story find their readers in denial.
…
“Every once in a while a paper will rear back and really try to do a job—a big series on economic changes,” Longworth told me. In the last few years, “the Cleveland Plain Dealer did this, with a long series called ‘The Quiet Crisis.’ . . . An editor at the paper told me the series was generally well received, ‘but the two pieces specifically on globalization and immigration landed with a dull thud.’
The common thread to these three media meditations? They address whether all this convergence hoopla is actually good for societies big and small. The blogger here seems to think this is the case; the journalists do not.
For anyone hoping that the former is correct and that the latter still will have jobs and meaning, take solace from the recent Pulitzer Prizes, Dean Starkman of the Columbia Journalism Review says:
The big winner in yesterday’s Pulitzers? The investigation.
Sure, The Washington Post won six. But newspapering’s highest—and most important—form won at least that many.
Maybe something grassroots fighters and print hacks can agree on?
Last quarter, the Medill School of Journalism* was not the happiest place to be. But as if to brighten our day, the school just unveiled the winners of its t-shirt contest. What got the most votes:
They’re available for the low price of $20 a shirt ($22 for XXL), plus $7.50 for shipping.
In another adventure in the saga of the Dean Lavine quote scandal, the dean held an open forum discussion with students Wednesday in the McCormick Tribune Center.
Read our liveblog of the heated discussion:
The forum opened with students associated with Journalists Speak, the blog that has been tracing coverage of the controversy, introducing themselves and possible themes for discussion.
5:36 p.m.: Discussion of the relationship between journalism and advertising is introduced as topic one for discussion. This will be followed by “anonymous sources,” “trust in media” (since apparently Congress is the only institution that people trust less than journalists - ouch), and “journalism ethics in the digital world.” Plus student brainstorming, and an offer for making money if we want to hang out in Evanston and research over spring break.
5:39 p.m.: Dean Lavine takes the stage! To awkward, stilted applause. He thinks it’s “terrific” that everyone came tonight, and I think he just tried to make a joke about how he made some notes, but I’m not totally sure. He launches into his speech, refusing to take questions until he’s said his piece.
5:41 p.m.: Lavine says he “sure didn’t” lie about the quote, and the student was real. “There are some people who would like you to think I did lie,” he says, before beginning a walk-through of the situation. He attended a class winter quarter last year with his reporter’s notebook, talked with students before and after the class and asked “fairly pushy questions” during presentations. IMC303, the class in question, isn’t a new addition to the Medill curriculum, and Lavine requested e-mails from students to learn more about how they felt about the class. When alumni magazine letter-writing time came around, he went back to the notes and e-mails. “I cannot tell you 12 months later whether it was the emails or the notes I took, and I don’t have them,” Lavine says, but the quote was representative of the student opinions. Main idea: “The quote was real.”
5:45 p.m.: Twelve months later, our mail servers can’t be brought back. Switch to Gmail so your emails are recoverable. “You’re either going to believe me or you’re not going to believe me, and I don’t have anything more to add,” he says.
Now Lavine has questions for us: Why in 12 months did no one raise any questions about the letter? Or about the three previous deans who ran letters with unnamed quoted students? If someone came up to you and asked you what you wrote in your winter quarter CTECs last year, or before, during, and after your final class period a year ago, how good would your memory be?
Pre-Lavinehood, the year before he become the dean, the accrediting council and Northwestern program review came to look at Medill in the same month, and they apparently were not happy. They found “a fine, regular, 20th century journalism school” but not one ready for the 21st century, according to Lavine. But don’t worry, we aren’t alone: It happens to lots of schools. This made the president, provost, board of trustees, etc. quite displeased.
“Faculty governance had failed Medill,” Lavine says. “There was no way to make the changes that Medill needed to have made with the system that was in place that had gotten us there.” And thus Lavine was appointed dean, which he says he did not look for or anticipate. We can’t walk away from the fact that journalism is “at a crossroads,” we need to “move rapidly and get it done.”
5:54 p.m.: Are some people making an issue of the alumni letter for another purpose? The changes at Medill are “bumpy, but huge,” and some faculty don’t like them. “We have no choice,” Lavine says, and we have to learn writing and new multimedia tools. “The good old days will never come back.” Some faculty say, according to Lavine, “if we can just topple the dean, then all of this will stop.” And there is a decision to be made.
“We can either engage these changes, have differences, but work through them and move forward, or not,” Lavine says. “I promise you that whatever happens from now on…if people try to attack me, and through me attack the progress we’re making, it won’t work. We are going to move forward. We have made huge progress.”
Also, The Houston Chronicle wants to learn what Medill students are learning, they told Lavine after he visited and showed a presentation of students’ work, and we should just stop being so judgmental.
“If you want to judge me, judge me and judge Medill by what we accomplish this year, and what we will accomplish next year, and what we will accomplish thereafter,” Lavine says.
5:58p.m.: Open forum Q&A begins.
Question 1: Advises Lavine to switch to Gmail, and says people are “pissed off” because Lavine was quoted as saying, “I’m not about to defend my veracity.” Student sounds angry that Lavine is on a “high horse” and hasn’t apologized, and says his response delay made the situation spin grow bigger than it should have. (Full disclosure: student works for NBN.)
Lavine doesn’t really answer her at all, but says he’s usually criticized for being too candid.
Question 2: Emphasis of Medill 2020 on knowing the audience - what’s the difference between journalism and marketing and where does Lavine see the line drawn?
“If anyone in this school panders to the audience ever, you’re doing just the opposite of what matters,” says Lavine. Also “quality media is being drowned in garbage.” Emphasis here is on the difference between marketing and pandering; there’s marketing that makes you pay attention, and there’s marketing with spin, which is the bad kind. “In a world with so much choice, we simply must understand the audience. And I cannot apologize for that, and I hope you don’t.”
Question 3: The student questions Lavine’s assertion that the forces that are “going after” him are against progress. Student raises the point that since both Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and NBN do new media, neither would be resisting progress and change at Medill. So why does Lavine think that those “forces” are going after him?
“People like Eric Zorn have contaminated the history of this story,” says Lavine, going on to say that it’s not fair to call a student in the midst of this controversy and ask them about the quote because it puts them in a very precarious position. “It has nothing to do with what media you’re with,” he says, it’s just that some people don’t like the direction that Medill is going. But the Houston Chronicle loves us, and application numbers are up. Lavine doesn’t know Eric Zorn at all, just reads his blog.
Question 4: Asks for update on the name change. She heard the meetings were “closed.”
Lavine “hasn’t heard much.” All faculty at Medill can go to all committee meetings, and the committee doesn’t want to share before they have things ready. Other than that, nothing seems to be public knowledge. “When they have something to say and a plan to say it” is when we’ll know, though Lavine suspects we won’t have update in spring quarter.
Question 5: Sorry that Lavine feels attacked, but thinks the faculty members represent us, especially the ones on the list. She says they represent some of the “best faculty members at Medill” and Lavine should listen to them, because they had to speak for the students. Feels like there’s a discrepancy between the standards Lavine holds himself and the standards students are held to.
“We will ensure that won’t happen going forward,” Lavine says, and he should have seen the difference in the standard, but it will be dealt with. Lavine says everyone uses anonymous sources, but he shouldn’t have and “it won’t happen again…but it’s a big deal.” Of the faculty that signed the letter, some of them are “the people [he] respects the most,” and this was an honest disagreement. The reason this forum didn’t happen until now is because Lavine agreed not to talk as requested by the provost.
Question 6: If a student turned in work without any clearly verifiable sources but claimed she heard them and you were the professor, how would the dean respond?
“I would be as critical of that work as I am, and you are, of what I did. I blew it, I’m quite clear about that.”
Question 7: How do we get Medill back on track as a cohesive school?
“That’s up to each of us,” Lavine says. We can look backwards or we can look forwards. Also Medill wants our ideas, and tomorrow afternoon the president and provost are meeting with the faculty, presumably these issues will be discussed. “We can’t go back, so let’s make the most out of it.”
Question 8, from an IMC grad student: The common threads between journalism and marketing are truth and accuracy. Is the context of a marketing piece (such as the letter in the alumni magazine) different from a piece on the front page of a daily newspaper?
Lavine thought of the letter as a marketing piece, not a news story. “But that’s not good enough. I’m the dean of a journalism school,” Lavine says. “It is not okay to not set a standard for everything Medill does that meets journalism’s highest standards.”
Question 9: Thanks for meeting, “better late than never,” wants a job with the Houston Chronicle, ha ha, “troubled” by attacks on David Spett. Displeased by Professor Hayden’s letter, Professor Weldon’s criticism, doesn’t think that when a student “goes out on a limb, does what we are supposed to do” it’s fair for him to be criticized. Doesn’t see how people’s dislike of Medill is relevant - motives of critics are irrelevant, what’s important is Lavine’s actions.
“We’ve always learned from criticism,” Lavine says. “It’s a process, not a set of answers.” But he disagrees with student’s approach. “I didn’t lie,” Lavine says, “And I think people that keep picking at this…have another agenda. …Let’s not connect the dots to all the problems of the media, because that’s not okay.”
Question 10: No one doubts the sentiment expressed in the quote Lavine used, but students are confused - why didn’t Lavine just use the student’s name?
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” Lavine says. He would have used the name if he had one, but he doesn’t always get names when he takes notes at a class presentation and can’t say for sure whether it was a junior or whether he had the name. Is it important to always have names in a story? When do we use unnamed people, not quotes? We’ll have to address this spring quarter. “I’ll ask people their name and I’ll use it,” Lavine says. “That’s only a tiny part of what this is about.”
Also, he’s not going to comment on the professors’ criticism of David Spett.
Question 11: Wants to speak “for the students who are not outraged.” Thanks Lavine for being gracious and wants to let him know “not everyone is as angry or pissed off as it seems.”
Lavine says thank you, followed by awkward laughter from the audience. Lavine says Medill is expanding, and in the past two years we’ve seen “some of the biggest changes in the history of this school. They’re not me. They’re every faculty member in this room, and they’re every one of you.”
We’re all in this together. Cue High School Musical. “This is one of the most exciting times in journalism history. Judge us by that.” Not our synchronized dance moves?
Question 12: Says Lavine sounds like he’s defending himself, and not everyone is against the changes, the topic is “the quote thing” and the fact that Lavine is defensive makes people more likely to “do the attack thing.” Also thinks Lavine sounds defensive when he speaks and should tone that down and be proud of what he’s doing.
Lavine says “okay.”
Question 13: Student reads from the NU Principles of Academic Integrity and is reading the section on fabrication. Literally word-for-word. And now the standards for faculty and how they are held to all the same standards as students. Audience gapes.
“I think that if someone lies we deal with those policies. I didn’t lie,” Lavine says. “Don’t go there. We can have this conversation, but let’s have it on a reasonable ground. There is a reason that I brought up that this thing is being kept going. … For some people, they’re going to be against me, because I’m a reasonable target, but to say to me that we’re now going to have a standard for notes and process in the alumni magazine that never existed before…you cannot hold somebody accountable for something after years and years of that not being the standard a year after the fact. I made a mistake…I was wrong and I’ll apologize, and I’ll learn from it.”
“This isn’t an academic paper” Lavine says, it was a letter on the cover of the alumni magazine. “We’re all wrong and we should’ve done it differently, but that’s as far as you can go.”
Question 14: Says faculty aren’t afraid of progress, they’re afraid of journalism being diluted by marketing, and Lavine is talking to them but not listening.
Lavine says most faculty are great, but some disagree and want to get rid of him because they think if he’s gone the changes he’s making will be gone. “For most of this faculty, they have no bigger fan than me.” Also journalism should call out marketers when necessary, and marketers try to sell things, and that’s “totally different than journalism.”
He says that Medill understands journalism, and “this dean understands journalism and its role,” but we shouldn’t shun marketing, because “under the flag of saying ‘it’s marketing,’ we’ll turn away the part of marketing that helps us learn.” Understanding marketing is the same as understanding economics and psychology, and we should celebrate audience understanding.
Question 15: From a grad student who left a job in marketing to come be a journalism graduate student, in what may or may not have been a poor life choice. He thinks there are plenty of people who love Medill. In the real world you can carry anger, but eventually you have to let it go, and we have so much energy that we should use it to find catharsis and then get our cohesion back because Medill’s only going to be what we want it to be. Inspirational, really.
Lavine wisely doesn’t say anything, as it’s almost 6:30 and college students get cranky when deprived their promised free food. On April 14, Laura Washington and Jack Fuller will be here talking about ethics, and we should work over spring break. Now for the “come for the free pizza” half of the evening.
In sum: Dean Lavine thinks we need to move on, stop calling him a liar, put this all behind us and stop fearing progress. Students still don’t seem to have closure, still making angry-looking faces. Medill, much to student chagrin, didn’t order Giordano’s and gave us Domino’s instead.
Medill lecturer Tom Hayden, who taught the Winter 2007 advertising class at the heart of the controversy over Medill Dean John Lavine’s use of unnamed quotes, released a statement Monday about the dispute.
More to come.
Dear colleagues:
Over the weekend I read the editorial in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune.
I’m sad. Very sad. Extraordinarily sad.
If you want to know why, you’ll have to read on. And I promise you…this is a long letter.
Many of you don’t know me well. Some of you don’t know me at all. But I feel very privileged to serve on the faculty of one of the most prestigious schools, within one of the greatest universities, on the planet. I am quite proud to be a member of the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism, which as you know, we affectionately refer to simply as Medill.
For those who don’t know me, I teach courses in Integrated Marketing Communications, not Journalism. I came to Medill in 1998, first as an adjunct and now as a lecturer. I am a lawyer by education, and a 29-year marketing professional. I gladly accepted the dean’s invitation to oversee communications for Medill in addition to my teaching schedule.
I have taught IMC 303 since arriving in 1998. Students in my winter quarter 2007 class have unfairly become the object of much misinformation and speculation regarding a quote by Dean Lavine in the spring 2007 issue of the Medill magazine.
I find it interesting and troubling that only two reporters attempted to contact me throughout this fabricated media drama. I agreed to speak with one of the two. He seems to be a serious and sincere young man who writes for northbynorthwestern.com. Unless I completely misread him, he appears interested in getting to the truth. With all the things I’ve read over the past weeks and months, I sometimes wonder if there are any others out there searching for the truth.
But no one else has called me. No other faculty members. No one from the Daily Northwestern, not even the student who first wrote about the dean. No one from the Tribune. No one from the Sun-Times. No one from the wire services or other news organizations that picked up the stories and ran them. No one who has posted commentary on our alumni list serv. No one.
No one seems interested in what I have to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. Once. We’ll see if it shows up in the Daily, or on the front page of the Tribune.
As I stated, I’m sad. I’m sad that a very small number of students, faculty, alumni and unaffiliated journalists seem so intent on doing damage to Medill at such a critical and positive stage in its evolution.
But I’m happy because it’s not working.
Medill is in the midst of hiring the largest number of new faculty members in its history. Most of these will be tenured or tenure track faculty. All but two in the current wave will be Journalism faculty. Interest in the positions has been nothing short of overwhelming. Numerous faculty committees have been diligently screening and interviewing well-qualified and enthusiastic candidates. The greatest difficulty will be to select candidates from this abundance of talent.
Medill remains among the “hardest-to-get-into” of all the undergraduate schools at Northwestern. Undergraduate applications are at an all-time high.
Applications to the MSJ and MSIMC programs continue to be robust, both in number and quality.
The number of “name brand” companies who come to campus to interview our students continues to increase as well, for both Journalism and IMC jobs, residencies and internships.
From my perspective, the future of Medill has never been brighter.
Last fall I was fortunate to be invited to a conference whose attendees were primarily newspaper editors and other seasoned, senior journalists, and many of the major U.S. newspapers were represented.
I felt honored, as a marketing instructor, to be invited to attend a conference sponsored by journalists.
Why was I invited? The conference was convened to discuss the First Amendment and my IMC 303 class project during that quarter was to develop a marketing program for the First Amendment. Our client was the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The point to be made, however, is the number of unsolicited compliments I received from heavyweight journalists about John Lavine and the direction in which he is leading Medill.
Regarding my class, until recently there were three or four journalism majors enrolled each quarter. I should tell you that IMC 303 is one of the most popular undergraduate elective courses at Northwestern, and arguably the most difficult for undergraduates to get into. Since the implementation of the Medill 2020 curriculum, journalism majors have been allowed to pre-register for the course. It is now typical to have 12 to 15 journalism majors in the class each quarter, which comprises about half of the class.
So there you have it…journalism majors electing to take a marketing class in numbers triple what they were just a few years ago.
Just so you know, interest is quite strong from students around the university in the new IMC undergraduate certificate program that will be launched in the fall quarter of 2008. Interest is particularly strong among Medill undergraduates.
In my class and in the new program, it is not our intent to turn journalists into “shills” or “spin meisters.” Rather, we are trying to provide all students with learning, skills and tools that will allow them to be more successful in whatever career they choose to pursue.
I want to now focus a bit on what has become known as “quotegate” and my winter quarter 2007 class. Those covering the story have created the impression that all 29 students in that class have specifically denied being the source of the quote in question. Here’s my perspective on what really happened.
First of all we’re dealing with nearly year-old memories. I challenge anyone reading this to tell me, without looking at calendars or notes, what they were doing on the evening of March 8, 2007, at 9:00 p.m., who they were speaking with, and what was said. That was the date and time the class presentation concluded, and that is when an informal but spirited discussion began between students and the dean.
Fast forward to the present and recent past. At some point in the last month or two, students in that class received a phone call out of the blue from someone they may not have even known, demanding to know if they were the speaker of a specific set of words.
Back in March 2007, many of these students were up for nearly 48 hours, putting the finishing touches on a presentation for a very professional audience. Seventeen executives from Allstate, Leo Burnett and Weber Shandwick attended. The dean, three associate deans and several faculty members attended as well. The pressure leading into the presentation was intense.
I would be very surprised if any of the students could remember, 10 to 12 months later, whom they may have spoken with after that presentation, or what was specifically said. It is unreasonable to expect that it is even possible.
The following, however, recounts what several students recently said to me, confidentially, regarding their conversations with the Daily columnist who contacted them. I have notes and names, but I choose not to share these notes and names for reasons that I will explain below.
One student told me that he refused to talk to the Daily columnist. Further, he
told the columnist that if his name was used publicly, he would deny that
he had ever been contacted.
Another told the columnist that he was sure the dean’s quote came from someone
in the class because the quote reflected how everyone in the class felt.
Another student suggested that the call she received was “bizarre.” She told me that she didn’t know who the columnist was or what he was talking about so she simply hung up.
Another said she refused to talk to the columnist, but “bitched him out” because
he refused to tell her who had given him her private and unlisted phone number.
So at least three of the students in the class neither confirmed nor denied that they spoke the words in question. Yet none of the above has made it into any of the published reports. I shared this with the provost and his committee, however, because they asked me for whatever insight and information I might have. At no time did I reveal the names of any students. Nor was I asked to. Nor will I ever.
I later learned that as some of these students began talking to each other, a sense of anger began to arise since they did not believe the columnist accurately reported what they had collectively told him.
Beyond anger, we are now dealing with feelings of intimidation and fear. Some students have told me that they felt intimidated by not only the columnist from the Daily who called them, but by some other members of the class. Worse yet, some spoke of the fear of reprisal from faculty members who had signed the petition that was sent to the press. One told me that she just wanted to finish and graduate, and not get involved in anything that could interfere with her ability to do just that.
The most disturbing conversation I’ve had regarding this whole matter involved a student who was not even in the Allstate class. The student had an interview with a reasonably well-known newspaper. The interviewer opened with a negative monologue directed at the dean and the school, and the student felt compelled to agree with her or lose any chance of being hired.
I have always believed that journalists are the flag bearers for truth and free speech. If any students, anywhere, should feel confident in articulating any opinion on any issue whatsoever, it should be journalism students. They should never feel pressured to limit their voice, particularly by other journalists.
But I get it. With the cost of a Northwestern education, and with the intense competition for jobs, is it any wonder that students might keep their heads down and steer clear of any controversy – particularly as they approach the completion of their education and find themselves in the hunt for employment? They simply want to graduate and begin their careers. Rational or not, I understand their fears when it comes to anything that might get in the way of their immediate future success.
Some of you might discount or ignore my comments since I have chosen not to name names. I happen to strongly believe that the student-teacher relationship is sacred. I believe that a large part of my job is to provide students with learning and a classroom experience that will help to enable them to get the job of their dreams, or into the graduate program of their choice. As teachers, we are counselors and confidants, just as we are instructors. Involving students in a controversy that is not of their doing would violate the relationships that I have worked hard to build. Since it is my opinion that “quotegate” has been contrived by forces wishing to bring down the dean, I choose to not bring any innocent student bystanders into the fray.
The dean has said that he did not make up the quote. He has apologized for failing to attribute the quote, and for failing to keep whatever notes or e-mails contained the actual words. My students, while none can remember saying the specific words contained in the dean’s letter to the alumni, certainly express a sentiment that is completely consistent with the words the dean used.
There is nothing more that can be done. For the skeptics and cynics, there is no way to prove or disprove anything. The matter is over.
I regret that most of those who covered this story chose not to contact me. But I have now said what I have to say, and it’s all I intend to say.
In spite of the Tribune’s editorial and the abundance of recent negative coverage, I will once again express my strong pride in Medill. I know that most of the students, faculty and alumni feel the same way as I do. I love being here, I love teaching, and I love being part of a dynamic and innovative school and university. I feel very fortunate, indeed.
Provost Daniel Linzer, who’s in charge of university academics, announced the findings Friday to the Medill community via e-mail. The committee comprised three people, who all serve on the Medill Board of Advisors, according to the Medill Web site: Jack Fuller, who once was editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune; Teresa Norton, who’s on the NU board of trustees and was managing editor of Crain’s Business Insurance; and Paul Sagan, who was once new media editor for Time, Inc.
The three found that although no records of the disputed quote could be found, it was unreasonable to expect Lavine to have kept meticulous notes from the disputed “Letter from the Dean” column that he wrote last year. They also reported that the sentiment of the quote was similar to course evaluations, and that they saw “no evidence to point to any likelihood that the quotes were fabricated.”
In the column, Dean Lavine wrote that the quote came from a Medill junior in an advertising class. Lavine quoted the anonymous student as saying:
I came to Medill because I want to inform people and make things better. Journalism is the best way for me to do that, but I sure felt good about this class. It is one of the best I’ve taken, and I learned many things in it that apply as much to truth telling in journalism as to this campaign to save teenage drivers.
In a Feb. 11 Daily Northwestern column, David Spett said that he contacted all 29 students in the class and that they all denied saying the quote. Medill Professor David Protess recently re-contacted the five Medill juniors who had been in the class, and confirmed that they denied saying the quote.
Spett’s column also pointed out other instances of the dean quoting unnamed people, and soon after, media outlets and faculty members criticized the dean’s use of the anonymous sources; the sources voiced support for the dean’s controversial efforts to bring the marketing and journalism sides of Medill closer. The quotes’ veracity was also questioned.
A student petition seeking further explanation from the dean was started Feb. 20 by Medill students Emmet Sullivan, Aaron Gannon, Tricia Bobeda and Margaret Matray, authors of Journalists Speak, a blog covering the controversy. They said they delievered the petition last week, with 240 signatures, to Lavine, Linzer and President Henry Bienen.
After receiving Linzer’s e-mail, Sullivan said Friday that he hopes the dean can speak more freely about the situation, and journalism ethics in general, now that the provost’s investigation is over. The four students from Journalists Speak will hold a forum to discuss the controversy during Reading Week, on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the McCormick Tribune Center Forum.
Spett said that he was “taken aback” by the provost’s assertion that there is no evidence that the quote was fabricated. The only evidence that the quote was not fabricated is the word of Dean Lavine, he said. No one associated with the review contacted him, he said.
Medill Professor David Protess called the committee’s conclusion that there was no evidence “demonstrably inaccurate.” He cited as evidence Spett’s column and both his and Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn’s re-reporting the denials of the students who could have said the quote for it to be accurate.
“The dean clearly says in his letter that ‘a Medill junior told me.’ There were five Medill juniors in the class, I had multiple exchanges with all of them, on the phone and by e-mail, and all five students vehemently denied communicating their sentiments about the class to the dean,” Protess said.
Protess said he contacted the five students after the provost send the letter, and each of them denied being contacted by the committee appointed by the provost.
“I think this is, frankly, systematic of a larger problem which is on issues of crucial importance to the Medill – to the Northwestern community. Student voices are not being heard, because they’re not being listened to,” he said.
Protess also took issue with the assertion that evidence shows that the quotes reflected the “sentiments” of some of the members of the class.
“Some of the concerns expressed by the Medill community reflect the belief that if simply capturing the mood of unnamed sources is good enough to be used in quotation marks, then our standards as a journalism school have been slipping,” he said.
Protess said he does not allege a fabrication by the Dean.
“I am not saying that I believe the dean fabricated quotes. I am an agnostic on that issue. I don’t know, and we probably will never know because the dean understandably does not have his notes and e-mail messages from a year ago, and on that I agree with the provost’s committee. That’s a pretty tough standard, I don’t know if I could retrieve things that people told me from a year ago,” he said.
“It pains me to see the reputation of the school being damaged and I also have known John Lavine as both a good colleague and friend for more than half of those years and it equally disturbs me to see his reputation tarnished,” he said.
The statement, which was e-mailed out to the Medill community on Friday morning:
To the Medill Community:
As you are doubtless aware, concerns have been raised about certain passages in the “Letter from the Dean” which appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of the Medill Magazine, the school’s alumni publication. In particular, questions were raised about the use of unattributed quotations, with some people going further to question the veracity of those quotations.
The first issue is one of editorial policy, and Dean Lavine in a recent message has pledged that the policy will be changed to require attribution for all quotations in Medill publications. The allegation regarding possible fabrication is, of course, very serious, whatever the type of article or publication. Thus, I appointed an ad hoc committee to review the available information and to advise me regarding these issues.
The committee consisted of three Medill graduates who have had distinguished records of achievement in journalism and the media. The committee included Jack Fuller, a Pulitzer Prize winner who served as editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune and whose books include the highly-regarded News Values: Ideas for an Information Age; Teresa Norton, a member of the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University and the Medill Board of Advisors, former managing editor of Crain’s Business Insurance magazine, former award-winning partner of Hewitt Associates management consultants, and retired founder of Vineyard 29 Enterprises; and Paul Sagan, co-chair of the Medill Board of Advisors and also a member of the University’s Board of Trustees, who has served as news director of WCBS-TV in New York, co-founder and vice president for news of the New York 1 News cable network, president and editor of new media at Time, Inc., and is currently president and CEO of Akamai Technologies.
The committee unanimously concluded that although a record of the student statements that were quoted cannot be found, sufficient material does exist about the relevant storefront reporting experience and marketing course to demonstrate that sentiments similar to the quotes had been expressed by students. Thus, the committee found that there is ample evidence that the quotes were consistent with sentiment students expressed about the course in course evaluations and no evidence to point to any likelihood that the quotes were fabricated. The committee further stated that the author of a piece like the “Letter from the Dean” could not reasonably be expected to have retained for a year the notes or e-mails documenting the sources of quotations used in the letter; nonetheless, the committee advised that in the future such meticulous archiving might be desirable given the heightened awareness of the problems that can result.
I accept the committee’s conclusions. While I join Dean Lavine in wishing that material demonstrating the sources of the quotations was readily available, I have determined that no violation of University policy has occurred in connection with the Spring 2007 “Letter from the Dean.” I have confidence in Dean Lavine to continue to lead the Medill School of Journalism.
That so many people - including students, faculty, and alumni - expressed views on this matter testifies to their deep commitment to Medill. I hope you will join me in supporting the Medill School and its leadership as it works to ensure that the School’s storied role and distinguished reputation as a leader in journalism education continue as it and the profession face the challenges of the twenty-first century.
The five students to whom Dean John Lavine could have correctly attributed his now-infamous anonymous quote have made a second, on-record denial to Medill Prof. David Protess.
Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn posted Protess’s reporting methods and the students’ names on his blog.
While there were 29 students in the Integrated Marketing Communications class to which Lavine referred, 5 were Medill juniors at the time. Lavine’s attribution was: “A Medill junior told me.”
Via e-mail, Protess asked if and how the students spoke to Spett, if they said the quote, and if Spett correctly classified their denials of the quote.
Protess disclosed that Spett was his student Fall Quarter. On a previous Zorn blog post, Protess had called Spett “a truly outstanding student” in the class and said “I believe him.”
Protess’s re-reporting further implies that Lavine misquoted, but not necessarily that he was dishonest. There were other Medill students in the class.
Each student denied ever talking to the Dean about the class before Spett’s column, either by e-mail or in person, according to Protess*.
Clarification - February 28, 2009: The original version of this blog post incorrectly portrayed the nature of the students’ responses to Prof. Protess. The sentence now correctly asserts that each student denied ever speaking to the Dean about the class.
I e-mailed Emmet Sullivan, a Medill senior, about why he, Aaron Gannon, Tricia Bobeda and Margaret Matray started the petition. He emphasized that the petition is about the dean’s response, as much as the anonymous quotes themselves.
“There has been no apology and he has changed his story more than once,” Sullivan replied in an e-mail. “Was there an email that has since been deleted? Are there handwritten notes? Was it a true quote or did it just merely reflect the sentiment of what he had heard? We still have not received an adequate explanation.”
Sullivan said the group had been drafting a statement over the weekend. Since it has been released, they’ve received more than 160 signers within 12 hours, he said, and overwhelmingly positive responses.
The whole point of the petition was to engage students, he said: “We were also sick of hearing how supposedly apathetic students are on this campus. Enough are angry about this that we felt we should be heard as well.”
With increasing media attention, Tuesday’s faculty statement and a new student petition: How do you think the quote controversy will play out for Dean Lavine and Medill?
Medill students Aaron Gannon, Emmet Sullivan, Margaret Matray and Tricia Bobeda have sent out an e-mail, which is being widely forwarded, with a statement criticizing Lavine’s use of anonymous sources, and asking that he address students about the issue.
They’re seeking the digital signatures of Medill community members, who can e-mail savejournalismatmedill@gmail.com with their name and year if they wish to support the statement.
The four students also run the blog Journalists Speak, which has been aggressively covering the controversy.
Here’s the full statement:
Since beginning at Northwestern, we have been taught certain sacred rules in journalism. Failure to abide by these rules can and has resulted in punishment, from a failing grade to expulsion from the program.
The controversy surrounding Dean John Lavine has made this week a troubling one. We do not know if he fabricated the quotes in his letter to alumni or simply failed to properly attribute them, but we expect more from Dean Lavine, the head of our school.
We are disappointed with the lack of attention paid to students. Dean Lavine has so far failed to address his student body on this issue (as of Feb. 20, 2008, when this petition was written).
We fully support the faculty statement and are looking forward to hearing from the Undergraduate Medill Student Advisory Council. We, the undersigned students and alumni, still wish to identify our concerns. We hope that more students will join our petition in the coming days.
Dean Lavine has said that because his column in Medill magazine is a “personal letter,” he does not need to follow the same reporting style as a news story. We agree with the faculty statement that the magazine is “subject to the same standards as other publication venues.”
Dean Lavine, as a role model for our community, is responsible for upholding the elements of the Medill Integrity Code in all his published work.
We echo the faculty statement calling for Dean Lavine to provide notes or sources for his piece.
We hope the dean will address his students on the matter at hand. We feel we have been ignored.
In signing this letter, we believe the dean, the faculty, the alumni, the students and ALL members of the Medill community should come together, come to terms with the issue and use this unfortunate situation as a teachable moment in our journalism education. In our eyes, this has yet to happen.
The Chicago Sun-Times also rehashes the faculty statement.
The Sun-Times did nab a quote from ethics professor and former Dean Loren Ghiglione, but misspells “Levine” in the third paragraph and doesn’t add much other context to the story, other than its brief history.
The Chicago Tribune has its latest story about Tuesday’s statement, signed by 16 Medill faculty members. It’s mostly a recap of what the Tribune has reported before; there don’t appear to be any new sources beside the letter, actually. Maybe that’s why the Tribune points to a Facebook group as a measure of student anger.
