A 19-Year-Old, A Racist Tweet And A Front-Page Shaming
Penn State’s student newspaper, The Daily Collegian, ran a front-page story on Friday about a student who sent a racially incendiary tweet.
Ashley Lytle, a 19-year-old student, tweeted:
That’s obviously an inappropriate and offensive tweet—one that I have no intent of defending. She deserves to be criticized for sending it.
But instead of focusing on my usual angle of media training, I’d rather focus on the sticky question of journalistic responsibility.
When writing about a 19-year-old college student who’s not a public figure (she’s not a student leader or high-profile college athlete), there must be some degree of proportionality. I have to imagine that many other Penn State students—there are more than 39,000 undergraduates at University Park—have also sent offensive tweets or said similarly offensive things. Is the new standard for the Collegian to shame everyone who does on its front page? And if not, is their cherry picking—which will mark Ms. Lytle as a racist for much of her college life—appropriate?
In this case, the front page placement seems irresponsible given the thinness of the news story. (You can read the full article here, which doesn’t say much other than: Student sends bad tweet. Some people mad.) If there were mass protests on campus from offended students, I’d understand the front-page coverage. Same if the administration was considering kicking her out of the school or if the article served as more of an in-depth look at the ill effects of social media on campus.
None of that was the case here.
Yes, this story may have been worthy of mention in the paper. But it would have been more responsible to cover the story on an inside page, which would have served the dual purpose of covering the story while giving it proportional coverage.
Regardless, this story, like so many others, underscores the need for social media training. Some colleges and universities are offering that to students—particularly for student-athletes—but in a world in which a single tweet can destroy a person’s reputation, it makes sense to arm every student with the information they need to make smarter choices. (Chris Syme’s excellent book “Practice Safe Social” is a great place to start.)
For her part, Ms. Lytle has apologized.
UPDATE: September 8, 2013, 2:45 P.M.
I received an email from Brittany Horn, the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Collegian, explaining her paper’s decision to cover this story. Due to the length of her response, I’ve posted it, in its entirely, to the comments section below. I encourage you to read her letter in full. You’ll also find my response to her email beneath her comment.
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A grateful hat tip to @ProfNichols.
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I don’t appreciate this girl’s thinking. Then again, she’s only 19 years old. She probably has the arrogance, narcissism and poor judgement of many kids her age.As for this article – shaming a 19-yr old girl is not good journalism. It’s bullying. It also takes the focus from real stories – anything from a solid case for social media training to offering advice on social media dos and don’ts. I’m not impressed with a story that humiliates a child – at 19 years old, she’s still an adolescent.
Kate – I agree with everything you wrote. I’m not thrilled with what she did – even at 19, she should know better – but the response was disproportionate to the offense.
Mike – Glad you like the media analysis! I don’t do a lot of straight media analysis, but this one really bothered me.
Love the Reliable-esque posts. Simply put, not a story. Front page placement on top of it leads you to question the judgement of the paper’s top editors.
Mike
I have to agree. It’s unseemly for a news outlet (even a college one) to target an individual for this type of public shaming over a remark, even a racist one, unless they are in an influential position of some kind. I think you were being a bit too generous in saying it might be worthy of a mention in the paper. It really isn’t, and the article does come across as bullying.
I respectfully disagree that this young lady is a kid – in my country at 19 you’re old enough to marry, have kids, drink, vote, and enlist.
If only she had dropped one word from her post… Apart from that, though, the overall tone was off for me. I’m not sure a Tweet is going to help with the problem but it if has the potential to help, the tone of the message probably isn’t going to get a discussion off on the right foot.
I’m involved in setting up a crisis management strategy (my first) and came across your blog on a search – really enjoying and benefitting from your blog.
Many thanks.
John
John,
Thank you very much for your comment (and for helping me locate and fix a typo!). I’m really pleased to hear that you’re benefiting from the blog. If any questions arise as you’re setting up your crisis management strategy, please let me know – your question(s) could lead to a good blog post.
Regarding your comment, I’m torn. You’re right that people are considered “adults” at 18 in many countries. But nothing magical happens the day someone turns 18 or 19 – everyone’s maturity process is different, and some 18 year olds are better equipped to make mature decisions than others. I’m not making excuses for this student – she should have known better – but I believe that the news threshold should be higher for a teenager who is not a public figure.
Thanks again, John, and welcome to the blog!
Best,
Brad
Her comment was inappropriate, but she may have just been imitating a role model in his late 50s, and a senior member of Penn State’s Board of Trustees. This is what Kenneth Frazier told an alumnus of the opposite skin color who challenged the Board’s reliance on the Freeh Report:
“We can take employment actions, we can take corrective actions without any need to resort to the so-called due process, reasonable doubt standard, and I don’t care if they are acquitted. And you know the difference. If you cared about that, you are one of the few people in this country THAT LOOKS LIKE YOU who actually believes the O.J. Simpson not guilty verdict was correct.”
Editor’s Note: I received a response from Brittany Horn, the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Collegian. You will find her full, unedited response below. In the next comment, I will respond to her email.
Hi Brad,
My name’s Brittany Horn and I’m the editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian. I apologize for not returning your emails sooner — I see from your story that you took that as a lack of interest in our part. That’s not the case, and I would love to explain to you why we made the editorial decisions that we did.
First, the story did in face run on our front page. You can find a PDF available online on our website.
• Why the story was about her, instead of the “issue” of race on campus
In all honesty, had this been just some random tweet that we saw online that garnered no attention from the student body, there is no way we would have reported on it. We’re not reporters that work solely off of social media. However, we received two phone calls to the Collegian office, as well as numerous @DailyCollegian messages and mentions drawing our attention to the issue. It also gained its own hashtag on Twitter and had much of the student body talking. By the time the story really gained momentum, it was relatively late and almost impossible to speak to someone in the academic or expert world about race and its role on campus. So we did the next best thing — we called the organizations who help lead the charge against racism on campus, and in the process, gained comment from UPUA President Katelyn Mullen, the Black Caucus President and the NPHC President. We also reached out to students who were talking about it to find out their thoughts on racism on campus and how this creates such an issue.
• Why she was named
We decided to name Ashley Lytle after it was confirmed that she attended Penn State and was involved in Penn State organizations, including Alpha Xi Delta. Because of the social media world we now live in, by the time our story hit, almost everyone reading and/or interested in the story knew who she was or had a pretty good idea. She also had a public Twitter account before it was deleted, which meant anyone could search her and find her tweet, making it a public forum.
• Why her picture was used
Again, we used her picture for many of the reasons listed above. Because she was on a public account, anyone could have seen her picture and been able to post it. Also, by the time we were printing, to blur out her picture would have taken away from the integrity of the tweet.
• Why it was important to say she was a sorority member
As in the “real world,” people are identified by their involvement with various organizations and the positions they hold. In this case, Lytle had made it clear on her Twitter through her previous tweet that she was an active member of the PHC and therefore made it a point of interest to identify her through this organization. But, as Kristin already mentioned, it was even more compelling that this was the third incident of racism openly displayed by the greek life community here at Penn State in the past year.
Finally, from the tone of your last question and from the blog post you already wrote, it’s clear that you don’t agree with our decision, and I can completely understand that. However, we are a news organization that prides itself on covering every aspect and facet of student life. In this case, this tweet and the response surrounding it was a huge conversation Thursday night and we would have been negligent had we not reported it. If you didn’t see in our updated story (from your post, it links to our original web update Thursday night), we included a statement released by the University Park Undergraduate Association President. The fact that the president of our student government felt compelled to release a statement again proves that this wasn’t a story we could ignore.
Thank you so much for reaching out and for reading the Collegian!
Dear Brittany,
Thank you very much for your reply. It’s clear from your response that you put a fair bit of thought into your editorial decisions, and I appreciate that you’re making a genuine effort to cover Penn State news responsibly.
That said, I still disagree with your decision. The one thing your comment doesn’t address is the main issue I raised in my post — proportionality. That you decided to cover this story is one thing. That you decided to splash this tweet on your front page, making the story bigger than it was (in my judgment) is quite another.
Most of this blog’s readers, according to the (admittedly non-scientific) poll, thought you shouldn’t have run the story at all. I’m personally okay with the fact that you ran it, but thought it belonged on a less prominent page. The news justification that you provided (people tweeted about it and some student leaders commented on it) still doesn’t justify, in my mind, running a front-page story that could do such damage to a student’s college career. That’s particularly true given that she’s a non-public person. It seems we disagree on the news threshold that thrusts a story from the inside pages to the front page.
I’d welcome your response on that topic as well. In the meantime, thank you for engaging in this conversation and sharing your thoughts regarding this story.
Sincerely,
Brad Phillips
Brad,
I had to vote for the “lazy story” category given the way they treated the story. They went for the inflammatory, juicy angle of someone using Twitter irresponsibly with a hot-button topic.
As you mentioned, regrettable tweeting most likely happens about 39,000 times a day, so going to the research and effort of tracking down the student, finding her sorority and other background info just to post a scarlet “T” (for tweet I suppose) on the front page really isn’t news. It seems more self-righteous and just as mean-spirited as the poor judgement tweet.
I freely admit that it’s been a few decades since college, but poor judgement and all of the other qualities Kate mentioned ran amuck then. IMHO the statement from the student government on racial insensitivity is the more responsible story, not publicly labeling a lone tweeter as some kind of bigot.
Given that we’re talking Penn State, you’d think the Collegian has plenty of real news for its front page than this.
John,
The scarlet “T.” I love that. My only regret is that I didn’t think of it prior to posting this story, as it perfectly captures my sentiments.
Thank you for your comment.
Brad
Hi Brad,
I’m one of the many who saw this piece as a “lazy story”. After reading the editor’s reply to you, I feel even more sure of my initial “gut feeling” on the article.
Like you, I thought this was blown way out of proportion. I also thought the editor’s attempt to link it to two other incidents of “racism openly displayed by the Greek life community” over the past year was pretty tenuous at best. As you pointed out, the student who wrote the tweet was not a student leader and was not writing on behalf of her sorority or any other organization. She was just a student, who happened to belong to a sorority, who made a really bad decision. If she was sorority president who made that statement in her official capacity at some type of official meeting, then I could see the editor’s justification, but not in this case.
Additionally, the editor seems to think that a statement released by the University Park Undergrad Association President validates their decision. I couldn’t disagree more. In the face of media calls about an issue (especially racism), most organizations will engage in some way, if only to distance themselves from the offending behaviour. Otherwise, the paper could have written that the Undergrad President “refused comment”, which could be seen as a tacit endorsement of the tweet.
Finally, to say the paper received “two calls” and some mentions on their twitter page hardly justifies their response. One of the major challenges for reporters is to deal with those types of calls, and separate the wheat from the chaff to determine what’s worthy of follow up. While this may have been worthy of some type of follow-up, the editors need to be careful about the type of precedent they set, unless they want to reserve the front page for every student that tweets something insensitive or outright stupid.
And as John said, I’m sure there’s something else going on at Penn State that warrants more prominent news coverage.
Thanks for another great post,
Brett
Brett —
Amen. I couldn’t agree with you more. The news justification seemed weak, and the editor-on-chief didn’t address my central criticism, that the story’s front-page placement seemed disproportionate to the newsworthiness of the story.
Thank you for leaving such a thoughtful comment!
Brad
Having worked on my college newspaper, and having to make similar decisions, the point I question about this story is the editor weighing chatter about the event. Does chatter neccesarily make an event news? Or, does amplifying chatter through a front page story amplify its noise, which gives the event a preceived newsworthiness?
In part I agree with Brad — this story, however, could have been a much deeper treatment of racism on campus and could have run as a full feature. The student’s tweet could have been used as illustration.
I believe news should edify readers, and a deeper treatment could have done that.
This is a very interesting topic. I generally agree with you Brad on the news value and news judgment but this also the new reality social media has created.
People want to be heard. They look at themselves as sources of news, information and opinion that they broadcast out to anywhere from a handful of friends to millions of people. But what you and I learned in school or on the job about ethics and good judgment is not something the average person on Facebook and Twitter (like Ashley) knows.
So, now that her Tweet went viral and caught the attention of more mainstream media, should journalists now be in the position of protecting Ashley because she wasn’t smart enough to do it herself?
Ashley put herself out there. I am not sure ignoring the identity of a person most everyone on campus knows is any better journalism than the decision in the first place that this was news. I feel for Ashley because she really didn’t understand what the impact would be of such a message. But she has essentially made herself a public figure by broadcasting her private thoughts to the world. No one should expect reporters to cover for them in that situation.
Hi Dave,
I totally understand where you’re coming from on this one.
I’d feel differently if the story met a higher threshold of newsworthiness. If this young woman’s tweet led to something more substantial (e.g. a protest or condemnation from the school president), I’d agree that reporters would have to honor the story and not offer her any protection. But in this case, there wasn’t much of a story, which is why I thought the coverage was disproportionate to the offense.
Then there’s the issue of cherry picking. Is the paper really going to put every similar tweet on its front page? And if not, why did Ashley’s belong there?
We agree that, ultimately, she had the power to prevent the paper from running the tweet by not tweeting something so dumb in the first place.
Be well, and thank you for commenting!
Brad
Brad, I wholeheartedly agree with your position. Poor editorial judgment based on two calls, some social media chatter and putting a student at potential risk by the prominence and personal information provided. Bad judgment by the student? Certainly.
The issue reflects the challenge of news media judgment, need for balance and measured response in a real-time social media driven world. I think that talented editors and writers could have covered the story without the downside. It’s also part of the problem with linkbait journalism.
Thought-provoking, enjoyable post.
I have to look at this from a educator and PR standpoint. Young digital natives often feel obliged to post whatever they are thinking at that moment on social media with no regard for its lasting impact. It speaks to a lack of understanding about how things can and do go viral, as well as the responsibility that goes along with freedom of speech.
I don’t think it was front-page news, but I do think it could have been covered and used by the university journalism students and professors as a teachable moment about social media use. This will forever haunt this girl and, the more her peer group understands that, the more thoughtful they’ll be before ranting on social media.
Dear Mr. Brad Phillips,
Unless you attend Penn State currently you cannot completely understand the impact these types of race-related issues have on campus. If this story had not run at all, that would have been a problem. The fact that it was on the front page, in my opinion, as an actual student of Penn State, shows that the Collegian, notorious for horrible reporting and inaccuracy, is stepping up their journalism game a bit, and paying attention to the issues that are important to students, of all walks of life, at Penn State.
The ‘proportion’ you keep suggesting should have been factored in is almost as inaccurate as some of the stories that have run in the past five years in the Collegian. Why? Because a proportional response to racism is really a ridiculously privileged idea. So she gets to be ‘accidentally racist’ and sheltered? Um, no, I don’t think so. Welcome to the real world Ms. Lytle. There is a reaction to every action. Sometimes they are big, sometimes little. This one happened to be medium-sized and folks are pouting, ‘Poor Ashley, let’s review media etiquette, so this does not happen to another accidentally racist person. She doesn’t deserve this much spot light for that *minor* racist comment, she isn’t even a celebrity’. I mean really. What the heck kind of reasoning is that???
Additionally, Twitter widens your sphere of influence and ‘proportionality’. Don’t make excuses for this woman because you feel like she was ‘put on blast’ by the Collegian. She put herself on blast.
More constructive however, was the response of Professor Sam Richards this week in SOC119, where ignorance, bigotry, and racism were discussed, so actually, thanks Ms. Lytle. Out of the mouths of babes comes racist nonsense and then actual mature discussions via excellent professors. Thank God.
I actually thank the Collegian for making the Deans aware of that tweet, because one Dean did tweet to Dr Sam and ask if he would be addressing the topic. A pretty important topic for Penn State in the last year and a half.
I think Onward State did a better job of highlighting the repercussions of this young woman’s tweet. And the Collegian editor is right. By the time that story hit the paper, everyone was already talking about it. Check the time of the flow of tweets with #thehubisnotaplayground, and then check when the Collegian was even able to put out the article. The hundreds of tweets with that # is what caught the Collegian’s attention. Twitter moved way faster than the Collegian ever could.
It totally was a lazy story, even with all of what I wrote above though. They should have waited and put together a richer story with intent and focus. But that is not what this paper does, as it is a notoriously knee-jerking, half-@ssed reporting, inaccurate mess of a publication. I have reason to say so. They have misquoted me on one or two occasions. But Ms. Lytle does not get a social media pass and some sort of sheltering because she pouted into the interwebs about Loud Blacks in the HUB. Twitter is a dangerous thing. And race relations at Penn State are always a bit volatile.
Welcome to Penn State U Park, and I hope you enjoy your stay. 🙂
Dear Kimeka,
I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment. I’d like to respond to a few specific concerns you raised.
1. You’re right that I “cannot completely understand the impact these types of race-related issues have on campus.” But that’s entirely my point: The Collegian’s article did nothing to help me understand the impact these types of race-related issues have on campus. I wrote in my blog post that I would have been fine “if the article served as more of an in-depth look at the ill effects of social media on campus.” That could easily be extended to the ill-effects of racism. Had the Collegian written a smart article about how this one random student’s tweet fit into a larger and insidious pattern of racism at Penn State, I wouldn’t have objected to its front-page placement.
2. You wrote that “a proportional response to racism is really a ridiculously privileged idea.” Please allow me to depart from this tweet for a moment to draw an analogy. Say, for a moment, that I was the editor for Little Rock, Arkansas’ newspaper in 1957 when a group of nine African American students was about to enter an all-white high school. As you know, many whites were saying horribly racist things to and about those students.
If I was the editor, what story should I put on the front page:
STORY ONE: A local politician, school administrator, or other person in a position of influence makes racist and disparaging remarks about the black students.
STORY TWO: A random older man named Larry who lives in Little Rock used a racist term to describe the black students.
From a journalism perspective, that’s a no-brainer. You go with story one unless there’s a compelling reason to go with story two. (I might have run a front-page article about the community’s sentiment in general, but I wouldn’t have made Larry the sole star of the show, which is what the Collegian did.)
3. You wrote “she put herself on blast.” Well, there we mostly agree. I hope that one of the biggest takeaways for Penn State’s students from this incident is that every word matters. That applies online and offline, of course, but the words said online lead to a permanent record.
Thanks again for commenting. Although you might not agree with my thinking, I hope my response offers you greater insight into it.
Sincerely,
Brad
While my initial reaction was, “this isn’t a story, what is wrong with the Penn State paper?” as I read through the posts here, I see it was indeed a story, but I still don’t believe it was handled correctly. I have not taken the time to see if I could download the PDF of the original piece or any following articles. I can say, if I was in their shoes, here’s what I would have done.
1 – Understood the tweet and buzz about the tweet
2 – looked at all of the various facets of this- how is social media affecting journalism and ways we communicate
3 – look at the underlying issues behind the tweet – is there a racism problem on Penn State and what can be done to alleviate/resolve these issues.
As I said, while my initial thought was no story, I now see the big picture and feel that it was not just 1 story, but the opportunity to report on social change (media & race) at the University. This small incident of the tweet seems to be the catalyst of something bigger that had been brewing for some time.
I’ve said for some time now, I’d hate to be a coach or PR person for a sports team now trying to control what is being tweeted by athletes. So often, they have no filter and simply speak their mind, appropriate or not, and without regard on how it reflects back to the team/university. Though this woman is NOT an athlete, it is a prime example of how a tweet (or social media in general) can affect public perception of what is happening on campus.
Mr. Philips,
I agree wholeheartedly with your point. However, don’t you believe that by also publishing the student’s name, you are contributing to the problem? Your post here is one of the top results of a search for the student’s name (in my case, I googled “Ashley Lytle Penn State”). Did you consider the implications of republishing her name and essentially solidifying the effect that this story may have on the rest of her college career and possibly life?
I would be interested to hear a response from you and perhaps hear your thinking behind this.
Dear Matt,
Thank you very much for your comment.
Your question is entirely fair, and it’s one I considered carefully before hitting the publish button.
I thought the front-page placement of that story was disproportionate to the offense. So here’s a paradox: If I did say that publicly, I’d have to invoke the name of the student, therefore expanding the coverage of the story. If I didn’t call into question the coverage itself (assuming no one else did – and few others have), it would have left the impression that no one in the journalism world contested the very fairness of that story.
Had no one else published her name, I wouldn’t have. But once the Collegian (and others) did, I felt there was an important place for this media criticism. The fact that my post is coming up high in search engines should, if anything, serve as a counterbalance to the Collegian’s story. I honestly don’t believe that my story “solidifies” the effect this will have on her life. Other stories were already coming up high in search engines, and mine focused more on the ethics of the reporting than the tweet itself.
You still may not agree with my decision, and if not, please know that I respect your view. But please also know that I thought this issue through carefully before posting the story.
Best wishes,
Brad
Ashley’s live on Campus is just about ruined, although I am certain that a racist few will solicite her friendship. She will never gain the complete college experience of diversity. She is 19 years old, she has only been in college 1 month. probably from all white neighborhood, knows nothing about black culture (I am certain she has never experience a “harmony gathering” ( called in my neighbothood yrs ago). if she was sheltered, she may not have appreciated what the outcome of her tweets could be. Or just maybe their music kept her up all night or kept her from studying), – she was sounding off. The Papers editor should have looked at the big picture, had some of my concerns, & given her a pass. like you said, she had probably read many similar tweets, maybe even some much worse. The backlash of her social media blast is a hard lesson for her to learn, NO I don’t agree with her, and won’t defend her, but rather than ruin her life, try education, that’s what she came there for.
Dear Brad:
1. Might you consider that the Collegian was not written particularly for you and does not serve your purposes? It was not meant to make you understand. I would gather from the editor’s response that this was a ‘breaking news’ story in the community Your background precedes you, and it seems to me that local issues like this one may not fit completely under your purview. The front page placement comes from the mindset and culture of the student body and the student run publication that is the Collegian. They are trying (and flailing, yes flailing) to be U Park’s heart beat on breaking issues.
2. I completely agree with the sentiment of your second point. But don’t think that white journalists writing about stories like the one you described would make the choices back then that you think you would make now if you *were* writing back then. Privilege will allow you to make up all kinds of assumptive situations and use them to illustrate ‘good’ journalistic decision making processes. I call shenanigans on that whole idea.
But I will play along. What *you* think is a ‘no-brainer’ for that scenario are the same reasons that the Collegian Editor-in-Chief thought that that tweet story was a ‘no-brainer’. From a journalistic perspective, you go with the story that is compelling to the population segment. ‘Larry’ and his comments (in U Park’s case Ashley) were a ‘no-brainer’ for this publication in this community. Larry/Ashley is not the star of the show. The ‘star’ was a combination of racism, ignorance, bigotry, and no foresight. Ashley deliberately twitter as the vehicle to deliver her thoughts to the community (‘Dear most of the black community at Penn State’ made that clear). The Collegian acted as the town criers, as is their job. Our community deserves the info, even if given crassly by these blood thirsty student writers, but it is what it is for now.
Your outsider’s perspective on what you think Journalistic responsibility should be doesn’t necessarily apply to Penn State, even with my strong distaste for the Collegian. It just seems like you are being soft on an intolerable topic by resorting to ‘put her on the second page or something. This is not news.’ This is indeed news that is important to Penn State.
3. She sure did put herself on blast (haven’t we all)! She will probably do it again too. Same as all of the other racial issues that have cropped up over the years. Those perpetrating these acts don’t understand what they are doing and are surprised when they post to facebook, twitter, instagram, tumblr, lockerz, you name it, and folks are offended.
It’s called privilege, white privilege in Ashley’s case. Think of how disconnected she was before this– that she thought it was her place to tell a community of people who pay the same Student activity fees that she does, the same tuition, and is allowed the same access (for the most part) to all university facilities as her, that they can’t ‘play music, be loud, and shout’ in the HUB, when every other people group is allowed to do whatever. She was extremely wrong for that.
But, she has an outlet for redemption. It’s just not the one you may picture. And faulting the collegian for not thoroughly explaining everything to you is very strange. They are not a national new outlet. What the NYT WSJ, LAT, USA Today, NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS and etc do are not what the Collegian does. Examining the Collegian under a regional or national interwebs scope seems to be just as disingenuous as you think it was for them to put Ashley Lytle on the front page. :-/
She is 19, if she does not know that the internet if forever by now, then all of us are doing something very, very wrong.
HEY EVERYBODY, THE INTERNET IS FOREVER. And no, racism is not over. Jeez. AND NO. She does not get a pass! 19 or 19, or 19, she does not get a pass. Apparently she knows enough about the internet to use twitter. Her life is ruined forever! Yeah, in an alternate universe where her skin will work against her for the rest of her life maybe, but not in this one. She will be just fine. it’s a lesson learned for her, she is getting just the type of college education and college experience she probably needed.
Anyway, now I am all into your blog and think you are doing a great job. Cheers! I’ll be back to check on you all later.
Absolutely no mention of Onward State, which originally covered the story? That’s what’s most irresponsible here. Two different student media organizations made a terrible call — to blame one and not the other is misinformed and foolish.
Zach and Kimeka —
Kevin Horne, the editor of Onward State, confirmed for me this afternoon that he didn’t run the story as one of his paper’s “top” stories, the online equivalent of a traditional paper’s front page. He wrote: “We get to pick a ‘primary’ story and three ‘secondary’ stories that stay at the top all day. The Ashley Lytle story was never one of those stories.”
Please remember my specific criticism of The Collegian: story placement. The title of my piece mentions the “front-page shaming.” Onward State didn’t do that, and thus didn’t warrant mention in my piece.
Thanks for reading and writing.
Brad
Dear Zach,
Yep, I noted that too, and I thougth Onward State did a better Job. They are also a *graduate* student (mostly) run publication.
Dear Zach,
I don’t think onward state took the same approach as the Collegian at all. They showed the backlash of the Penn State Student community and actually had an angle. Why was that a terrible call? I still don’t think it was a terrible call on the Collegian’s part either. Just business as usual.
It’s been interesting following this story. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that poor decisions were made on all sides, but a lone 19 year old girl will be left paying the price – some of that price being out of scale with the offence. The Collegiate was as irresponsible as Ashley was, and they both made poor decisions, but the Collegiate is not likely to experience any loss for their irresponsibility. If anything, they will likely be benefiting from that her misfortune (as well-deserved as some of that misfortune may be). That is what happens when a media outlet fails to maintain journalistic integrity. We see it all the time with the likes of TMZ. It’s a shame to see that at an educational institution, but I guess it comes down to people, and there are all kinds of people everywhere.
The reporter in me wishes I could dig up the story some more. There’s a lot more to be said regarding the race issue, there’s a lot more to be said regarding the journalistic integrity issue, and I think there’s probably a more intimate angle we’re not getting, as well. I mean, I guess I don’t like to put down to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence, but the placement and context of that tweet seems a bit suspect to me. I’d be interested to discover if there was something more to it. Something personal between her and someone on the staff, or between her sorority and the paper.
Dear Brad,
So here is my other issue with your article: What does the ‘front page’ really mean when you have the Internet? And Twitter? And Facebook? She was not just all over the Collegian or on Onward State. But when you search for her the Onward State *and* the collegian article come up. The onward state article actually gets more hits because they showcase the tweets and the reactions to the tweets their idea there was ‘don’t take our word for it, just read what happened…and THEN what happened…’ So…
With all that, what is really a front page anymore? And why have you made it equal to ‘shaming’ in Ashley’s case? Once again, I question your understanding. And I think you, and the others that are doing anything to treat Ms Lytle like the Collegian was so wrong for what they ‘did to her’ is weird. Do we all agree that we are living in the age of the internet? I didn’t have to pick up a paper to know that the Ms Lytle tweet was in the collegian. It came across my twitter feed. Maybe for the older generations this is still important, but the front page placement argument is very weak, because frankly, we are using newspapers to make paper mache.
I read what comes across my twitter feed. And if it comes across my twitter feed like 200 times you bet that rings a bell in my mind. Some journalists have already acknowledged that print media is already secondary to the speed and versatility of the internet. A peer of mind studying journalistic integrity in reporting reminds me that when it’s happening online, it’s a whole different ballgame.
I still stand firmly on the fact that she actually placed herself on the front page. We can’t actually sit here and be like ‘BAD, BAD COLLEGIAN!’ when we have the internet, and that’s how everyone found out anyway, except for, i would guess, older folks who still get copies of the collegian delivered, or go to the website and the first thing they saw was Ashley–but for a vast majority of us, that Ain’t the way we found out.
I couldn’t tell you if that was the front or back page. All I could tell you for sure that it was on onward state, and then the collegian. If you check it, onward state had WAY more hits early on because they took the time to capture the retweets and hashtags of others. So, what is our definition of shaming here? And why the collegian and not twitter or onward state? Why do you need someone to blame for this girl’s racism? It was her fault, simple as that.
I repeat, her life is not ruined. Not only will she live to see another day, but she will probably infamously give talks on that one time she was a bigot on Twitter and how it got out to a million people. NOT via the Collegian mind you, Via twitter. Even Dr Sam Richards was getting tweets to talk about it in class before the Collegian could warm up the press. Print media is going the way of the VCR and the 8-track. I now understand that the front page, really just does not mean much anymore, just as the A side versus the B side means absolutely nothing to those who never touched an LP in their lives. *shrug*
Kimeka,
You raise an entirely fair point about the “front page” in an era of digital journalism. The story might not have been on the digital equivalent of the “front page” on the Onward State website, but you’re right that many students aren’t visiting the homepage, but rather clicking links that take them directly to a single story. It’s a fair point, and you’ve given me something new to think about.
I obviously disagree, however, about needing someone to blame for her racism. I don’t have any clue who I would blame – Parents? Community? A permissive society? A sordid historical legacy? She is ultimately responsible for her words, and she’ll have to pay the price for them. As I said in my comment to Mia, this is about journalistic decision-making and consistency for me, not race.
And neither you nor I have any clue how this will affect her life long-term. Perhaps you’re right that she’ll get some sort of acclaim for this act. But I think you’re underestimating this nation’s distaste for such statements. One only need look at Paula Deen and Riley Cooper to see how little tolerance many Americans – including white Americans – have for racism.
Best wishes,
Brad
Kimeka, THANK YOU for providing a voice of reason in this bastion of white protectionism. Let’s call it what it is. Everyone here ‘upset’ with the Collegian is really just upset at the idea of a young, white woman or man being held out of favor with society for sentiments they wish they could voice out loud without repercussion.
(Que the “Oh now you’re playing the race card” comments)
This entire post is little more than pushback from society’s shift in tolerance of bigots. A 19 year old is not a kid. She is not a victim of anything but her own hatred, and it only HER that is to blame for the JUSTIFIED shaming reigned down upon her. I can’t read the silly “her life is ruined” comments without laughing. Let’s face it, she will be just fine. The lengths all of you are going to in order to make her a victim is an astonishing look at how far we have to go with regard to race relations.
What’s funny is the depth of hypocrisy here. Look at the alleged outrage at putting this racist on the front page of here college newspaper, while she voluntarily broadcasted her hate on in the most public, wide reaching forum known to man: the internet. She knows the internet is public. She knew her profile was public. She knows whatever she posts on the internet is there forever. This wasn’t a simple mistake. Be very ashamed of yourself if your best defense of this woman is that she was a young kid unaware of the consequences of her actions. She understood– better than any of you–the reach of a tweet or Facebook post. This young WOMAN was relying on white protectionism to shield her from any real backlash. I’m talking about the kind of protectionism on display here to be more specific.
The truth is, no one here outside of Kimeka is really outraged or upset at what Lytle tweeted. You don’t care one bit, and some of you can’t even pretend. You’re all P.O’d by the fact anyone has the nerve to make an example out of her, which worked. Deal with it and get over it. The shaming won’t stop until every pee-brained bigot realizes that not every thought that comes to his or her moronic mind is worthy of sharing with the world. That is the bottom line to the entire issue.
Dear Mia,
With your comment, you have committed the same infraction as Ashley.
Ashley generalized about a group of people. She said that almost every black student at Penn State was blasting music and dancing at The Hub. And you responded by overly generalizing as well, saying “Everyone here ‘upset’ with the Collegian is really just upset at the idea of a young, white woman or man being held out of favor with society for sentiments they wish they could voice out loud without repercussion.”
How do you know that? With what information have you made such an overly broad accusation about me and the commenters here on the blog? What secret knowledge do you have that allows you to be able to ascertain the motives of people you’ve never met or interacted with?
Mia, I have a long track record of blasting racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-gay public figures, among others. If you had spent just a few minutes on the blog, you would have come across my posts on Paula Deen, Mel Gibson, Al Campanis, Marge Schott, and others, who have rightly earned society’s enmity for their racist words. You also would have noticed that I explicitly wrote, “That’s obviously an inappropriate and offensive tweet — one that I have no intent of defending. She deserves to be criticized for sending it.”
I’ll remind you of my point one last time, which for me is about journalistic decisions, not race. There are more than 39,000 undergrads at College Park. In total, there are more than 96,000 students under the Penn State banner. Of those 96,000 students, Ashley is almost certainly not the only student to send a racist — or jingoistic, or anti-Semitic, or anti-gay — tweet. So my question is why she was selected of all of them for the front page, and whether the new editorial standard for the Collegian would be to run ALL such tweets on the front page. If not, I questioned why Ashley was specifically targeted for a public shaming. I’d like to know why one racist tweet qualifies for the front page while 10 others don’t. If anything, I’d have more respect for the Collegian’s editorial policy if they had some consistency – I’d almost prefer them to run a feature containing all racist posts than to cherry pick one with no editorial reasoning.
I welcome your comments here, but you might consider making your case without overly broad generalizations and phrases like “pee-brained bigot” and “moronic mind.”
Best,
Brad
The Daily Collegian is under constant criticism for their lack of professionalism, financial management and editorial ethics. The current editorial board’s coziness and blind obedience to the administration is an embarrassment to students, faculty and alums alike.
This very apparent conflict of interest makes even their most bland reporting on the most innocuous stories suspect. It’s a shame. It’s not the fault of the student reporters. I fault the administration of Penn State and the their Communications and Journalism’s departments.
“But I think you’re underestimating this nation’s distaste for such statements. One only need look at Paula Deen and Riley Cooper to see how little tolerance many Americans – including white Americans – have for racism.” -Brad
I thought about this comment this morning and came to look to see if I had it right. I did. Thanks again for a spirited discussion over three years ago!