Last week, The Eagle published an article covering a walkout on American University’s campus in support of Palestine. That article identified a speaker at the protest who had made an attempt to hide their identity by covering their face.
Editors were not made aware that the speaker had attempted to conceal their identity, and a reporter verified their identity without communicating with the speaker directly.
This was not fair to the speaker, and signified a larger communication breakdown in The Eagle’s editing process. The Eagle has since removed the speaker’s name from the article, and updated its Ethics Code with the following note:
“In the event that a public speaker makes a concerted effort to conceal their identity, reporters must reach out to them or their organization to verify their identity before publishing their name. If they cannot verify their identity, they should not identify them in the story.”
With this update, The Eagle hopes to avoid situations like this in the future.
