Reader Representative

First, the fact. In the first week of April, a member of the Kuumba Singers sent out an e-mail over the group e-mail list questioning whether the increasing number of non-blacks in the group diluted Kuumba's mission of sharing a black musical tradition. An intense e-mail debate followed, with members of the choir examining issues of diversity and inclusion vis-a-vis the possibility of the new multicultural demographics detracting from an "authentic" black experience.

The problems arose when The Crimson, a subscriber to the e-mail list, decided to run a story about the debate using quotations from the e-mails sent out over the list. Andrew Mandel '00, the staff writer assigned to the story, contacted members of the group to confirm their e-mail quotations.

While some members of the group were happy to be quoted, others did not get back to Mandel to validate their quotations. Yet a third group, including the writer of the original e-mail that sparked the exchanges, expressly denied permission to use its views in the story. Nevertheless, when The Crimson story ran on April 6, it included a number of quotations from the original e-mails of these unconfirmed and unwilling sources, albeit anonymously.

The reporting of the article provoked a strong reaction from the Kuumba community on a number of counts. "Our e-mail list is absolutely not a public forum," David Brunton '97-'98, Treasurer of the group, explains. "Kuumba is like a big family, and to the minds of the choir members, e-mails on the list are informal and intimate. There are no guarded responses here, like there would be if it were intended for public use." Members also contend it is easy to tell which posts are public--like an announcement of concert times and venues--and which are meant as private messages. So does the unendorsed use to material from such an e-mail list constitute an invasion of privacy?

Crimson insiders have three responses. Mandel says, "firstly, there is an issue of whether anything you post to a list of 242 members can be private. Especially when you know a newspaper is among the subscribers. Once you post something, I think it's out there, it's on the record." Crimson President Matthew Granade '99 adds, "anyone can check who's on the list--they know we're on the list. If you want a private list, you can close lists, this was an open list." And finally, The Crimson claims it also had a source within Kuumba forward them all the original e-mails. "It's like a University source leaking us a short list of tenure candidates in advance. We can then use the document," Granade says.

It does make a difference, however, that this issues concerns e-mail and not an official document. As Kuumba members point out, e-mail are incredibly easy to forge. They can also be casually forwarded and are disseminated much more loosely than official documents. If you cannot get the author to confirm an e-mail, does it constitute a valid source at all? Jennifer 8. Lee, vice president of The Crimson, concedes, "There is an additional responsibility to check on the source of an e-mail: there is a bigger element of gullibility. E-mail treads a tenuous line between phone conversations and formal letters." The distinction is a significant one--notice that while citing leaked letters may be fair game, tapped phone conversations are definitely not.

Legal technicalities aside, there are broader issues of journalistic priorities. Should a newspaper cite sources against their wishes? Kuumba members were perhaps most upset over this blatant violation of their stated desire for privacy. The Crimson responds with a hardball journalistic obligation to report the news. As Mandel puts it, "The story was newsworthy, and it could not be written without those e-mails. At that point, a newspaper has an obligation to use the sources even against the wishes of the writers." Granade reiterates this commitment, "It's like the Pentagon Papers--If it's newsworthy, the community deserves to know about it. The Crimson has a strong commitment to reporting the news. We're not like the Harbus [the Harvard Business School newsletter] which won't run stories sometimes if they harm the community."

And yet, The Crimson is a special kind of newspaper with special obligations. As a free newspaper for a small, interlinked community, it has to consider implications beyond the commercial proposition of the story at any cost. The paper has responsibilities to the cohesiveness of the community and to building a spirit of mutual respect and courtesy. And this spirit, at the very least, was definitely betrayed in this case. Kuumba members like Brunton point out, "the story could have been written without quoting those people. There were plenty of others who were happy to cooperate." Perhaps the story would not have had as much bang, perhaps it would not have been as sensational it was, but it would have avoided treading on the toes of 250 of our roommates and friends.

Lee maintains this perceived harm to a small portion of the community is "trumped by newsworthiness. It would have been worse for the whole community if we had to suppress the story."

Perhaps newsworthiness does trump this warm and fuzzy issue of spirit, but does it trump a commitment to a basic code of reporting policies? After all, most Kuumba members did not have a problem with the story itself, but rather to how the story was reported. "I agree it was newsworthy, and I am glad the story was written," says Brunton, "but not this way, not by pulling people's private e-mails. You don't expect this from a reputable news source, you don't expect it from The Crimson." Kristin Williams '00, vice president of Kuumba, was more emphatic, "It was just unethical," she said.

Most executives on The Crimson recognize the incident exposed some gray areas in the newspaper's policy, especially with regard to the use of electronic media. Some of the issues that need to examined further are: Is everything on an e-mail subscription list public? Should unconfirmed e-mail be cited? To take it a step further, can a paper use e-mails where the author denies permission? These issues will become more important as use of electronic sources becomes increasingly widespread. As Managing Editor Andrew S. Chang '99 points out, "Some people, like Dean Harry Lewis, now prefer to communicate with us only by e-mail."

In response to this electronic explosion, The Crimson needs to rigorously reexamine its policies to come up with a consistent, robust code of e-reporting guidelines. At present, glaring inconsistencies remain. For example, The Crimson's own Editorials Board refuses, on principle, to publish any e-mail letter without first confirming the content of the letter with the writer. Why should the News department allow itself to by any more lax? Granade allows, "Our standards must evolve in this area." With some conscientious thought into these evolving standards; hopefully the minimal guidelines will also be exacting enough to prevent stepping on further toes in the future. Maybe, if we do it right, we can have all the hard news and the warm and fuzzy spirit, too.

Kaustuv Sen '99 is an economics concentrator in Eliot House. Questions complaints and concerns should be sent to readerrep@www.thecrimson.harvard.edu.