Bankruptcy And Debts

Editorial Response

Date 12/2/2004 12:00 AM | Topic: Letters to the Editor

Chips has received of last week's cover article "" and the accompanying photo. Many of the comments stem from a lack of understanding about Chips's role on campus. We would like to use this opportunity to share our philosophy of being a campus newspaper.

Our official purpose, as stated in our handbook, is threefold: Chips is a forum for campus news and opinion. Chips is the Luther College newspaper of record. Chips is a learning environment.

Chips does not exist to promote the image of Luther College. Instead, we provide an honest picture of life at Luther. Chips functions in the same way that a national news source would, except on a smaller scale. If national news only presented the positive side of things, we would be sheltered from reality instead of having the knowledge and the tools to change.

Furthermore, the media cannot be identical to law enforcement. Some students have voiced complaints that Chips withheld the name of the student smoking marijuana in the photo but released the names of the students who were arrested. The student agreed to have his photo taken in order to illustrate drug use on campus. Chips agreed to grant anonymity in the same way that we would to an anonymous source for an article. On the other hand, the arrested students' names were on public record. We were reporting on the arrest, not on their alleged drug use.

In past articles, we have followed a similar policy. In the case of the article about the closing of the German House (), no arrests were made, so names were not used. An evicted student told us that marijuana use was the main reason for the house's closing, but no formal charges were brought.

This sort of article is appropriate for a college newspaper of our size. For example, The Wartburg Trumpet recently ran a front-page article about a marijuana arrest on campus, also using the student's name.

Furthermore, it is also a common practice to report on drug arrests but not alcohol-related incidents. The Decorah Newspaper does not list alcohol-related incidents in its arrests report, nor do any local college newspapers that we know of. Frankly, the 276 alcohol-related incidents in 2003 are not news individually. An on-campus drug arrest involving a search warrant is. If this type of arrest begins happening at a rate of 9 or 10 a week, Chips will change its coverage accordingly.

Chips did not print this article in order to criticize or condone drug use on campus or these particular students. Instead, it was printed in order to provide the campus with information about its community.

Chips stands by the appropriateness and quality of this article and photo. We will continue to cover articles that accurately reflect news at Luther College, even if that makes members of the community uncomfortable or angry.

Alison Meier
Editor-in-Chief

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