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Being editor of a college newspaper often involves long discussions with the editorial staff about difficult ethical decisions. We held one such long conversation over today’s story featuring James Meredith in which we agreed to certain conditions in order to obtain an interview with Mr. Meredith (See “James Meredith proud Ole Miss chosen to host debate,” front page).
In such instances, an explanation is often necessary and always warranted. Therefore, in the interests of transparency, I have chosen to do so here.
Mr. Meredith stipulated five conditions: first, that we may not refer to him as a black man; second, that we could not refer to the tension between white people and black people as “racism”; third, that we could not refer to the 1962 conflict on the Ole Miss campus as “riots”; fourth, that we must not say that the U.S. Marshals ensured Meredith’s safe passage into the Lyceum, but rather the U.S. Army; and fifth, that we must mention Southern Baptists at some point within the article.
The first four of Mr. Meredith’s conditions dealt with what happened in 1962. That story has already been told, and anyone vaguely familiar with the history of this university knows it by heart. We were far more interested in speaking with Mr. Meredith about the present and the future – what he as a man integral to the shaping of this university thinks about the present state of our campus and our hosting of the first presidential debate.
Perhaps the strangest of Mr. Meredith’s conditions was his requirement that we reference Southern Baptists somewhere within the story. We suspected that he would furnish us a reason for such an odd prerequisite, which he did in a manner that fit so well with the flow of the story so that we would have run the quote even without the condition.
We understand that other media outlets – among them the Associated Press – have rejected Mr. Meredith’s conditions and declined an interview with him. Given the full set of circumstances and our unique situation, however, we felt that doing so would be a tragic and unnecessary loss both to our newspaper and the university community which we serve.
Without individuals such as James Meredith, our university – and indeed our nation – would still be languishing in the darkness of bigotry and intolerance. His voice should not be silenced simply so we as an editorial staff can claim we made an easy ethical decision.
If upholding the ethics of journalism were as simple as rigidly adhering to hard and fast rules, doing so would be easy. In reality, however, we must sometimes look beyond simplified conventions and maxims to fulfill our broader – and considerably more important – mission. Let us remember that our goal is not journalism ethics but rather ethical journalism.
In that spirit, read Mr. Meredith’s words and be inspired by the insight of a man who had the courage to change the course of history.
