Ethics: Naming a tweeter

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Due by 11 a.m. Monday, Feb. 20.

Naming a Tweeter

Annoyed by the decibel level at the Hetzel Union Building – Penn State University’s student union – a 19-year-old white sophomore decided to register a complaint on the Internet blaming the noise on African American students.

At 3 p.m. Sept. 5, 2013, she tweeted:  “Dear most of the black community at penn state: the hub is not your playground, please stop shouting, and dancing and playing music.”

The tweet caused an uproar on the 45,000-student campus. Within hours, The Daily Collegian, the independent student daily, had received 30 re-tweets and two phone calls saying the tweet was racially insensitive and ought to be the subject of news coverage. In addition, The Collegian, which regularly monitors campus student leaders on Twitter, found that these leaders were concerned about the tweet’s racial nature.

Collegian editors had no doubt that the tweet was newsworthy because it suggested racial tension on campus and because it had drawn a spontaneous, significant backlash. But they needed to decide whether to use the tweeter’s identity in the news coverage.  And if they did use her identity, they had to be sure that she had actually sent the tweet that appeared on her account.

Trying to verify who sent the tweet

Verifying the identity was a challenge. The reporter assigned to the story called the tweeter’s cellphone several times over the next five hours. Once, the person answering the phone hung up. There were no responses to voicemail messages asking whether the cellphone owner had sent the tweet. Although the Twitter account had been active earlier that day, it was deleted during the time The Collegian was trying to verify the identity. The reporter was at a dead end.

Editors and the reporter then Google-searched the Twitter account holder’s name trying to find another way to verify that she had sent the tweet about noise at the HUB.  They found that the name was associated with the same sorority that had been mentioned in previous tweets on that account. So they called the sorority president, who would not confirm the tweeter’s identity.

Then, since information on the Web indicated that the tweeter was a member of the Panhellenic Council, they called the president of the council. The president confirmed that the account holder was a member of the council.

At this point the Collegian editors decided that they had verified the identity of the tweeter.

The Collegian’s coverage of the incident

The editors’ next decision was whether to name the tweeter in their Twitter, online and print reporting. That is a detail that gives the story credibility, of course. But in this instance, the editors had to make a choice between the ethical values of truth-telling (reporting the name) and minimizing harm (sparing the student some of the notoriety stemming from the tweet). It is a choice that raises such questions as: From a news standpoint, how important was the name? How would identifying the tweeter affect her life?

After a discussion, the editors made their decision. They would name her.

The Collegian tweeted at 9:03 p.m.: “Earlier today, a #PennState student tweeted an offensive comment regarding black students in the HUB that garnered a backlash on social media.”

That was followed immediately by a tweet naming the tweeter and her sorority, and stating that she had deleted her Twitter account since the tweet in question.

Three more tweets followed, the third of which, at 9:42, reported: “In the wake of numerous diversity issues raised last year, a controversial tweet gained campus-wide attention today.” This tweet ended with a link to the first report that was posted to the Collegian website at 9:21 p.m., which included the full text of the tweet, the tweeter’s username and her real name.

The next day, on Sept. 6, a story on the front page of The Collegian added a screenshot of the tweet, revealing the student’s picture as well.  

[Although this case study focuses on whether The Daily Collegian should have named the tweeter in its news coverage, her identity is omitted here because it is not essential to a discussion of the questions raised in the case.]

Here are excerpts from The Collegian’s story:

After a controversial tweet was posted on Twitter Thursday evening, many Penn State students took to social media to voice their anger and discontent.

It was a tweet that many believe was racially insensitive.

The tweet was posted by [name redacted]….

[Name redacted] is listed as a member of the Penn State chapter of Alpha Xi Delta on the chapter’s website. President of the sorority Jenn Flemming was reached by phone, but would not confirm that the tweet came from a member of her sorority. She said she was unable to comment further.

However, Penn State Panhellenic President Rachel Franceschino could confirm [name redacted] is a member of the Panhellenic Council at Penn State.

“She is a member of a Panhellenic sorority, but the tweet does not reflect the views of women of Panhellenic,” Franceschino said….

The Black Caucus was in the middle of its general meeting when they heard about the tweet Thursday, President of the Black Caucus Naeem Holman said.

“To see comments like that being made goes to show how little conversation is being made regarding diversity on campus,” Holman (senior-integrative arts) said. “I hope this can be a reteachable moment.”

Holman said he hopes to have the opportunity for either the student to reach out to the Black Caucus or for the group to reach out to her, in order to have an open conversation so the situation could be better understood….

Two days after she sent the original message on Twitter, the tweeter made a public apology. She emailed a statement to The Collegian, and it was published online Sept. 8:  “I sincerely apologize for my actions and words. The tweet in question is inappropriate, and I am truly sorry to those who I have offended.”

An editorial in the print newspaper Sept. 9 with the headline “There’s work to be done for diversity acceptance” did not identify the tweeter. Instead, it used terms such as “the student” and “the account owner.” In a Sept. 10 story “NAACP angered by tweet,” also omitted the tweeter’s identity.

Recalling other incidents involving greeks

The Collegian coverage pointedly mentioned two incidents in the preceding school year of racial or ethnic insensitivity involving sorority and fraternity members. This is what the initial print story reported:

One student, Lyn Peterson, who said she does not have a Twitter account, saw the tweet on her Facebook news feed four times. It was when she noticed that it had gone “semi-viral” that she decided to call the Collegian, Peterson said. …

This tweet comes less than a year after an “offensive” photo of the Penn State chapter of the Chi Omega sorority dressed in ponchos and sombreros surfaced last December.

Interfraternity Council President Chip Ray also wrote tweets in January referencing stereotypes about Mexican people, as well as derogatory comments toward women.

A professor’s critique of the coverage

Russell Frank, a Penn State associate professor of journalism and himself a newspaper columnist, was disturbed by The Collegian’s decision not just to name the Tweeter but also to run the screenshot with her photo. He wrote this essay and sent it to the newspaper. It was published Sept. 11. Here is an excerpt:

The Daily Collegian could have used the foolish tweet as a jumping-off point to gather additional evidence of racist attitudes among Penn State students and revisit the question of whether the university is doing enough to combat such attitudes. Instead, the paper decided to make an example of the tweeter.

The culprit wasn’t just named. A screenshot of her tweet — with her photo — was published on the front page of the print edition of the paper.

The usual defense of this kind of exposure is that the information is already “out there.” Anyone who wants to know the name of the tweeter can find it online in about five seconds.

Entirely true, but how many readers would have bothered? For most of us, I suspect, it was more important to know what was said than who said it.

Frank argued that the youth of the tweeter should have been taken into account. “If a Penn State faculty member had been the source of the tweet, I would say, by all means, name him and shame him. He ought to know better. Holding people with power accountable is exactly what journalists should be doing. But an undergraduate?”

Frank also objected to the amount of attention the paper devoted to the tweeter’s involvement in greek life. He wrote, “The story names the tweeter’s sorority and, in six additional paragraphs, includes comment from the president of the Panhellenic Council and a summary of two prior instances of greeks engaging in offensive behavior and comment… .Instead of insinuating that the complaint about noise in the HUB-Robeson Center is part of a larger pattern of ethnic or racial insensitivity among Penn State greeks — without giving greeks an opportunity to defend themselves — a reporter for The Daily Collegian might have explored the question ‘Is there such a pattern?’ in depth.”

The editor explains

In an interview, editor-in-chief Brittany Horn said that in deciding to name the tweeter, the editors were influenced by the fact that the original tweet had been re-tweeted more than 100 times. That led them to conclude that the tweeter’s identity was already public knowledge.  As they saw it, that warranted using the screenshot online and in print.

Horn said that she respected Professor Frank’s position, and that she and the other editors had “wrestled with those same issues” before the first story ran.  What ultimately convinced the editors, she said, was that the reaction from the student body was so strong, the tweeter had, in effect, become a “public figure.” She said that although they did not consider a single racial comment from a single student to be news, the heavy campus response to a tweet was news.

“Because it was brought to our attention, it was a campus issue,” she said.  “It would have been a disservice to the readers to not address it.”

Horn said that although they decided the tweeter’s identity should be a part of the story, the editors wanted to avoid making the story “only about her.”  That’s why, she said, in the first story and in the editorial, they emphasized that the tweet should be used as an opportunity to address the broader campus issue of diversity.  The Sept. 6 story quoted a student as saying “the issue is not about making the girl who wrote the tweet feel bad, but to start a conversation about prejudice at Penn State.”

The editors’ decision to stop identifying the tweeter in later stories, Horn said, was consistent with their earlier judgment that diversity was the focus, not the tweeter

Regarding the attention given to the tweeter’s sorority, Horn said that since they had been unable to reach the tweeter, contacting the sorority leadership was the only way to confirm her identity.

Horn said she still thinks the editors made the right decision.

She said students know that their online activity “is part of their résumé now.” This incident, she said, “is a reminder to our readers that there are consequences for what you say.”

Horn did not see the coverage as victimizing the tweeter. She noted that the comment function on the online story was deactivated because the editors did not want the newspaper to be “a forum for hurt.”

Horn said the newspaper had set a precedent for holding other groups responsible for instances of racial insensitivity in the past year (Halloween Costumes and Interfraternity Council president’s tweet), and this was yet another opportunity for the paper to facilitate a discussion about an issue that is difficult to bring up.

“[Our reporting] has created conversation,” she said, which she considers a success.  Horn said it might have been unfortunate for the tweeter, but the stories have created important teachable moments on campus.

The tweeter’s view

In an email written on Sept. 24 for this case study, the tweeter repeated her apology. She also said that she “was getting a lot of negative attention on Twitter” and that the Collegian story “seemed to fuel the fire.”

“It was very hard to read the comments and not respond back…to the very rude things,” the tweeter said.  “But, with the power of social media, unfortunately people only notice the negative, so even if I did try to apologize, it wouldn’t have gotten any attention.”

She said that although she was afraid that people would confront her, no one had.  Because the published picture was very small, she said she was not worried about people recognizing her. Still, she said, she is “terrified” to tell people her name.

She said she feels “as if the newspapers forgot that I was just a 19-year-old girl who said the wrong thing, at the wrong time, on a public media site and it just went viral.”

As for how the stories have affected her, the tweeter said: “In the beginning my studies were affected because I couldn’t think about anything else but the situation… . My biggest fear now growing up is that for the rest of my life when I go to apply to jobs, I’m going to have to explain what happened in college.  My future kids will search me on Google and ask what these articles are about.  One tweet, that I truly regret, will now haunt me for the rest of my life because newspapers decided to write the article about me.”

Questions for online discussion

1. If you were the moral agent in this case – the editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian – would you have named the tweeter? Would you have run the screenshot showing her photo?
2. The Collegian editor said the decision to name the tweeter was based on the fact that her identity already was widely known. Do you agree with that reasoning?
3. If The Collegian had decided to withhold the tweeter’s identity, should it have informed readers and explained the decision? If you were writing the explanation, what would you say?
4. In its initial print story, The Collegian recalled in detail two previous incidents involving greek organizations and the subject of race. Was the paper suggesting a pattern of racial insensitivity by members of greek organizations? If you think the paper was doing that, did it make the case?
5. Was The Collegian accountable when it published Professor Frank’s essay? What do you think of the professor’s criticisms?
6. An axiom of journalism in the digital age is that reporters must confirm with absolute certainty whether an online posting came from the person whose name is on it. The Collegian got the name right, of course, but at the time the coverage began, had The Collegian met that confirmation standard?