DE THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 VOLUME 99 ISSUE 8
Press crew from left to right: Justin Godbold, Printshop Superintendent Blake Mulholland, Harley Lawless, Mike Caulfield, Wilson Meador, Ben Villa. This is the last issue of the Daily Egyptian to be printed on the in-house printing press. For 47 years the DE was made in collaboration with a team of press technicians and editorial staff. Future issues will be printed by an outsourced company.
It is not the metal. Nor the ink, nor paper. Those are not what we lose. For those inanimate objects only act as containers for what we truly lose. Within those objects is the spirit of the Daily Egyptian. We lose tradition, passion and the people who worked each day on that machine. Words cannot express the importance of these individuals. Thank you Daily Egyptian press crew—past and present—for exemplifying what it means to have pride in what you do. - Sarah Gardner, editor-in-chief
Polar Bear guests left out in the cold Jessica Brown
@BrownJessicaJ | Daily Egyptian
Fewer people may participate at Polar Bear— an annual drinking event—this year thanks to a new university policy. Non-University Housing visitors will not be granted access to residence halls or Wall and Grand Apartments from 12 p.m. Friday until 7 p.m. Sunday. The recent no-guest policy has been adopted because of past experiences with visitor conduct during Polar Bear–hosted by Pinch Penny Pub from 10 a.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday–and similar events, said Jon L. Shaffer, director of University Housing.
“The inappropriate behavior we find detrimental to our campus community is disproportionately that of non-SIU students,” Shaffer wrote in an email. This is not the first time a ban on visitors has been in place. University spokeswoman Rae Goldsmith said this preventative action has been taken during Halloween in previous years. Jonnel Allen, a freshman from Chicago studying cinema, said he understands why the ban is in place. He said most of the trouble on campus comes from visiting non-students. “I can’t really blame them for doing this because it does get kind of crazy,” he said. “Like
unofficial, flipping cars and stuff. … People came from out of town to do that.” Other students disagree. Robert Simpson, a freshman from Chicago studying English, said he does not think visitors are the problem. “It’s not going to cause too much harm to bring a couple extra people in,” Simpson said. “They need to take proper precautions, but I don’t think keeping other people out of the campus is the way to do that.” Shaffer said this sort of restriction is common in preparation for such events at other universities. Crystal Bouhl, assistant director of marketing
for University Housing, said the university does not plan on taking additional measures to enforce the ban. “Guests are required to sign in at front desks,” she said. “In buildings without front desks, students are expected to comply. Residence Hall staff are on duty as usual and will ask non-residents to leave.” Gabby Griggs, a freshman from Steel, Mo., studying radio and television, is skeptical of how strictly housing will implement the temporary rule. “I don’t think it’s going to have any impact,” Griggs said. “If people want to have guests, they’re still going to have guests.”
Western Courier suspension adds to list of student censorship Tyler Davis
@TDavis_DE | Daily Egyptian
Nicholas Stewart got paid then punished. Stewart, a senior at Western Illinois University, was placed on paid administrative leave from his position as editor-in-chief of the Western Courier after he sold a video of a fight on the university’s campus to various media outlets. Stewart posted the video to the student newspaper’s website, westerncourier.com, according to an article on media critic Jim Romenesko’s blog. Gary Biller, WIU student services vice president, said he suspended Stewart because his actions were a threat to normal
operations of the university. Biller and his staff has received criticism from the Student Press Law Center, which protects the rights of student journalists, as well various journalism professors, including Bill Knight, who taught at WIU for more than 20 years. Biller has not described how Stewart was a threat but cited vague sections of the student code of conduct, usually reserved for theft or dishonesty, as the reason for suspending Stewart. Frank LoMonte, the center’s executive director, said the organization has already attempted to give Stewart legal guidance related to the matter. He said he has never seen a case quite like Stewart’s.
“We’ve never encountered anything like this, where a school believes it can remove an editor from office because he engaged in freelancing on his own personal time,” LoMonte said. William Freivogel, a professor at the SIU School of Journalism, said Western’s administration searched for a reason to discipline Stewart but had no real grounds to suspend him. WIU officials have not responded to requests for an interview. Freivogel, a lawyer who reported for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 34 years, said the College Press Act protects Stewart’s right to sell the video since he posted it to his news organization’s website. The College Press Act legally protects college journalists at
Illinois’ public universities against censorship and punishment from said universities. Freivogel said Stewart did what any good journalist would have in that instance. “If a parent of a player on a Saluki team calls in and wants a picture of the player used by the Daily Egyptian, the photographer will sell the picture to the parent,” he said. “It seems to me that [Stewart’s actions] are very similar to that situation.” The legality of Stewart’s actions are not in question but the ethics are just as important, if not more so, said William Babcock, a professor in the SIU School of Journalism. Babcock, who has taught media ethics for more than 20 years, said
Stewart’s actions were ethical. “As long as he is not taking away from [the Western Courier], either content that they can be using or have used, that’s absolutely fine,” he said. Babcock said WIU should be happy to be producing journalists who make content good enough to be sold. “We should be encouraging people to produce as much as they can,” he said. “Any university is simply wrong to try to prevent students from profiting from the knowledge they have gained from that university.” Babcock said WIU is attempting to censor Stewart because he is painting his university in a bad light. Please see STEWART · 2