2008 Woodie Awards
Publishing confession difficult
Anonymous posting came as surprise, decsion did not come easy
By: David Harris
Issue date: 11/26/07 Section: Voices
- Page 1 of 1
If only I hadn't gotten on the computer.
A few minutes before I was to go tailgating for the Central/Eastern football game Nov. 16, I decided to go to cm-life.com to approve comments to the Web site.
After all, there was controversy on campus because nooses were found. People were screaming hate crime left and right. So surely there must be some comments itching to be posted.
Bad mistake on my part.
The post at the top of the page caught my eye. It was long, it blamed the media for blowing the noose incident out of proportion.
Then I saw it.
"The truth is, I hung those nooses as a Halloween joke."
I put my put my hands on my head, and said 'oh crap,' only I didn't say crap if you know what I mean.
Someone had admitted to hanging the nooses. And as far as I knew, there were no suspects who had come forward to anyone.
Here I had what looked to be a legitimate confession to the nooses.
What in the world do I do?
I called the CMU police tipline and told them I had this. Two people blew me off. They said they had no comment.
I called colleagues to get advice. The main question to ask: is this legitimate?
After all, anyone could have posted this information. It could be someone who just wants to see if we would post it - someone just joking around.
But if you carefully read the post, it seems to be more than that.
You could see a few things about this post. First, you could see this person was resentful toward the media and its coverage of the situation.
Second, you can really feel the compassion coming through the words. This person sounds like he or she felt bad about the situation. The poster claimed to have not heard about the recent events in Jena, La. or at Columbia University. In the end, this person apologized for causing this huge uproar.
So if someone did fake it, he or she did a great job of making it look real. I decided it was legitimate.
Still, I decided neither to post the comment, nor do a story for the web. I felt that I needed more information - some sort of confirmation.
That information came the next afternoon when I received word that a male student had come forward.
In the post, the person talked about coming forward.
"I have not decided if it will help diffuse the situation, or just give a target."
Less than 24 hours after the comment was posted a person turned himself in. That could not have been a coincidence.
I felt strongly it was the same person.
After more consideration on Sunday, I decided to run the comment. You, the reader, should be privy to such information. We could not just sit on it.
It was a difficult decision, however, the right one was made.
editor@cm-life.com
A few minutes before I was to go tailgating for the Central/Eastern football game Nov. 16, I decided to go to cm-life.com to approve comments to the Web site.
After all, there was controversy on campus because nooses were found. People were screaming hate crime left and right. So surely there must be some comments itching to be posted.
Bad mistake on my part.
The post at the top of the page caught my eye. It was long, it blamed the media for blowing the noose incident out of proportion.
Then I saw it.
"The truth is, I hung those nooses as a Halloween joke."
I put my put my hands on my head, and said 'oh crap,' only I didn't say crap if you know what I mean.
Someone had admitted to hanging the nooses. And as far as I knew, there were no suspects who had come forward to anyone.
Here I had what looked to be a legitimate confession to the nooses.
What in the world do I do?
I called the CMU police tipline and told them I had this. Two people blew me off. They said they had no comment.
I called colleagues to get advice. The main question to ask: is this legitimate?
After all, anyone could have posted this information. It could be someone who just wants to see if we would post it - someone just joking around.
But if you carefully read the post, it seems to be more than that.
You could see a few things about this post. First, you could see this person was resentful toward the media and its coverage of the situation.
Second, you can really feel the compassion coming through the words. This person sounds like he or she felt bad about the situation. The poster claimed to have not heard about the recent events in Jena, La. or at Columbia University. In the end, this person apologized for causing this huge uproar.
So if someone did fake it, he or she did a great job of making it look real. I decided it was legitimate.
Still, I decided neither to post the comment, nor do a story for the web. I felt that I needed more information - some sort of confirmation.
That information came the next afternoon when I received word that a male student had come forward.
In the post, the person talked about coming forward.
"I have not decided if it will help diffuse the situation, or just give a target."
Less than 24 hours after the comment was posted a person turned himself in. That could not have been a coincidence.
I felt strongly it was the same person.
After more consideration on Sunday, I decided to run the comment. You, the reader, should be privy to such information. We could not just sit on it.
It was a difficult decision, however, the right one was made.
editor@cm-life.com
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Jemella Tolbert
posted 11/26/07 @ 11:57 AM EST
It's funny to me that when former football player DeOnte Burnam got caught up in his mess, everybody knew about it. It made breaking news on the website and managed to make the front page the following week. (Continued…)
Matt B
posted 11/26/07 @ 1:42 PM EST
You did the RIGHT THING. You started off by saying publishing the confession was a MISTAKE, but it was not.
You reported something NEWSWORTHY which HAPPENED; you did not report the news as people WANT IT TO BE. (Continued…)
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