The beginning of an almost-compelling series of events launched last Tuesday on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus and erupted into a media frenzy that even conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter couldn’t stay away.
Jillian Bandes, a former columnist for Daily Tar Heel, wrote a column entitled, “It’s sad, but racial profiling is necessary for our safety” that has trickled its way into conversations on our campus.
The column worked the distant rumblings of racial tensions—particularly centering on those of Arab or Islamic background—into a violent, all-encompassing thunderstorm. In response opinions editor Chris Coletta fired the columnist, not because of her opinion, he says, but because of her abuse of the quotes in her column.
Talk about bad timing.
There are two separate issues simultaneously occurring on UNC-ch’s campus—one dealing with race, the other putting their newspaper, and its reputation, under the microscope.
It is good that issues surrounding race are openly discussed because race affects everyone everyday whether we see it or not. But this open dialogue was not the point of Bandes’s column, even though it is a biproduct. Sure, her topic was racial profiling but that was very hard to find among the racist undertones scattered throughout the column. Apparently, she was going to make her point on the subject and didn’t care how she did it—even if it meant taking quotes out of context—which is one level below blatant misquoting and considered one of the worst sins a journalist could commit.
To make matters worse the people she quoted out of context are receiving death threats.
Had the same mistake of quotes supporting an argument or statement unknown to the one quoted been in regards to a separate, but lesser, issue the penalty would be no different.
Hindsight being clearer than 20/20, the topic of the column was permissible, though the quotes should have been checked and the way Bandes presented the information surely took away from any point she was trying to make.
The best thing the newspaper can do in the aftermath of these events is keep the subject of her firing off their pages. Any material surrounding race relations should stay—that is one of the purposes of any opinion page—to generate the discussion. Thus, the discussion should happen…
But, manipulation does not belong in open discussion or in the pages of a newspaper.
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