Last Thursday's Eagle article by Brian Kalish accusing the leadership of the AU College Republicans of being "under fire" was both inaccurate and misleading. The story relied on unaccountable anonymous sources to advance outright lies and hearsay about our club. What is even worse, the main sources are running for leadership positions for next year, and another source was a candidate's campaign manager. These students cannot claim to be uninterested observers.
We also feel The Eagle was dishonest in running the article, the body of which was written March 30, was slated to run April 2, but didn't run until April 12. All the "facts" in the article were presented as current when in reality, they were over two weeks old, and in many cases no longer valid. We do not feel it is appropriate for The Eagle to have served as part of any candidates' PR apparatus, especially when false information is spread, and people with absolutely no knowledge of internal matters are held up as authoritative sources. We particularly take issue with Mr. Kalish accepting at face value the claims that John Zevitas is both out of the loop and unsure of himself, and that Will Haun dominated the board. Neither John nor Will was afforded the common journalistic courtesy of getting to respond to these accusations or explain how things have really operated this year.
The leadership of The Eagle said the story was held so Mr. Kalish could better source it. It is now obvious he still needed more time. The only information added about events that happened after our club Secretary Seth Johnson met with Mr. Kalish on March 30, during which he was told that the story was complete except for what he had to say, was information that undercuts our board and club. The Eagle and Mr. Kalish were "taken for a ride" by candidates for office and their handlers. Being that we are in Washington, D.C., The Eagle should be inherently suspicious of people with ambitions having so much to say.
The article largely centered on the president removing an appointed member of the e-board for violating our constitution, which is allowed under the constitution. When the article came out this was a moot point since the AU administration no longer had the doubts expressed in Mr. Kalish's article. The College Republicans met last Wednesday with Kimberly Herrera of Student Activities, Bernie Shultz, our adviser through Campus Life and the former board member. In that meeting it was settled that he was no longer on the board, and that President John Zevitas had the authority to appoint and remove nonelected members of our board with a two-thirds vote of the e-board.
We do not want a bad article to damage the reputation we have built this year of hard work and dedication, or unduly influence an election that is supposed to be about ideas for the future, not personal vendettas. No one is served by such an underhanded, one-sided story - not The Eagle, our board, our members, or the readers on AU's campus. Elections for the leadership of the College Republicans should play out before the dues-paying membership, not on the pages of The Eagle.
Editor's Response
The Eagle wishes to address and clarify some points regarding the controversy that has stemmed from April 12's article titled "College Republicans e-board under fire."
Although the College Republicans' executive board has called The Eagle "dishonest" for running the article later than the reporter had initially told some sources it would appear, all publications - collegiate or otherwise - are fully within their rights to delay a story from being published as long as necessary in order to feel confident enough about the validity of its content. Comments made on the record to any reporter cannot be considered "dishonestly" used by a publication simply because they were published later than the source expected.
Furthermore, the decision to hold the story until April 12 was a logical result of some of Brian Kalish's initial sources being involved in the elections, as the e-board has pointed out; thus, its publication was delayed so Kalish could speak with other, uninvolved sources in the club, and so The Eagle's editorial staff could have extra time to consult with professionals outside The Eagle staff on their thoughts on the story's news value and soundness. Only after both these things took place was the article cleared for publication.
Another point necessary to address is that although the e-board states that "neither John nor Will was afforded the common journalistic courtesy of getting to respond to these accusations or explain how things have really operated this year," this is untrue. As mentioned in the article, The Eagle did attempt to contact all members of the e-board multiple times through various means while reporting the story, who either did not respond or refused to comment directly to Kalish. Instead, Will Haun appointed Seth Johnson to be the e-board's spokesperson, in effect allowing him to speak on the record for them all. Johnson denied the allegations, presumably representing the e-board's viewpoints in the manner it preferred. The Eagle has been more than happy to extend this common journalistic courtesy again in efforts to report the follow-up story that appears today, and we are pleased that in this instance more e-board members took up our offer to speak directly on the record to share what they know.
Additionally, at no time under this year's leadership has The Eagle had a policy barring use of anonymous sources. Kalish has answered for his sourcing to The Eagle's editorial leadership, and the sourcing was taken fully into account while deliberating about the proper time to publish the story. The Eagle is not obligated to disclose information about its sources.
All this said, in the April 16 issue The Eagle was prompt to correct and apologize for errors regarding the particular titles, class years and schools of some e-board members, and in the time since has spoken to e-board members to produce the aformentioned follow-up story for today's issue, shedding more light on the removal of Caleb Smith and the decision to stop collecting dues and set back the e-board elections date.
Ultimately, it is crucial to point out that this story was pursued beyond reader tips in the first place because a member of the College Republicans' executive board, Public Relations Chair Chris Palko, confirmed to Kalish that something beyond business as usual was going on in the club, but refused to speak further about it when contacted. This, combined with the reactions of some club members after a College Republicans meeting on April 9 and the fact that the club is one of the largest groups on campus and is allotted a good deal of AUCC funding - paid by students through their AU activity fee - made the story newsworthy.
Any contentions that the story's publication was delayed simply until it could be most damaging are weak, doing little to offset the initially damaging fact that one of the e-board's own members provided an important tip - a tip The Eagle would have looked into no matter what the political persuasion of the group. One would hope that any instance of hearing "no comment" from a source in a position of leadership, who has just alluded to a problem, would ever be merely ignored by any journalist in the professional world, and The Eagle stands by its choice to investigate the matter.
