Editorial: On Taking Accountability and Transparency

There’s a certain degree of understanding required when taking accountability. There’s an understanding of what the problem was, why it was a problem and how exactly to address the problem now that you’ve sat with it. 

Following the publication of Issue 2 of Volume 76, the Blue Banner editors took a moment to do that, examining the comments and rightful criticisms given to us and attempting to piece together a next step. The relationship between readers and writers is crucial for any publication, but when the publication is single-handedly run by the students to highlight real student issues, it becomes even more important to keep strengthening that bond. The article “Antisemitism concerns Jewish community” in the last edition harmed that bond. 

Misattributions in an article about antisemitism rightfully caused students to question our validity as a publication and our care as students on sensitive topics. While we have removed the writer from our staff and taken all of their articles down from our website, we’re faced with the question of what else we can do. 

As an open publication available for all students to join at varying writing levels, there’s a sense of trust given to students to follow the journalistic code of ethics. Unfortunately one of our writers broke this code, and although it’s too late to make changes to the print edition, we fully redact the article.

A community was hurt because of this article. While we were not made aware of some of the issues until it was too late, other aspects that were within our control were unfortunately overlooked, and we take full responsibility for those mistakes. 

The Blue Banner has always tried to be a reliable source of news and a safe outlet for the student body, and we are aware this situation has caused some distrust, but we want to come forward and confirm this is not something we are sweeping under the rug. 

We apologize for those affected by that article, and we apologize to our readers for not treating the work with the level of sensitivity that it deserves. 

We are committed to doing better.