Wussified: Northwestern Student Newspaper Mocked After It Apologizes … For Doing Journalism
It all began with the newspaper’s coverage of students protesting the visit by Jeff Sessions.
Session’s address to the crowd was disrupted in the way that so many right-of-center events get disrupted by the angry rowdies’ ‘heckler veto’.
And one of the students ran that story for their paper:
Students on Tuesday protested Northwestern College Republicans’ decision to host former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, chanting outside Lutkin Hall before attempting to interrupt Sessions’ talk by climbing through open windows and pushing through doors.
Around 150 protesters, some holding signs reading “No conSessions, No racism, No KKK, No Facist USA” and “SE$$ION$ I$ A TRAITOR,” gathered outside the lecture hall before Sessions was scheduled to speak at 7 p.m., booing and yelling as attendees entered the building. Sessions’ talk, hosted by NUCR, was titled “The Real Meaning of the ‘Trump Agenda.’”
Some protesters chanted “Hey, hey JBS, you got us into this mess” and “I-C-E, KKK, how many kids have you killed today?” while others called attendees “clowns” and urged them to “stop disguising (their) racism as free speech.”
Pretty ordinary, right?
The reporter did some digging and included the name of one of the protesters.
That protester was upset about being ‘outed’ as a protester at a public event.
And the Newspaper gave a long apology for having done so.
Even Mediaite was on the right side of this issue, if that tells you anything:
The long apology, published on the website of the(sic) The Daily Northwestern, offered a strong self-recrimination, saying it “was not the paper that Northwestern students deserve” for its recent coverage of students protesting a campus visit by former Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“One area of our reporting that harmed many students was our photo coverage of the event. Some protesters found photos posted to reporters’ Twitter accounts retraumatizing and invasive. Those photos have since been taken down,” the editor’s note explained.
“Some students also voiced concern about the methods that Daily staffers used to reach out to them,” the apologia added. “Some of our staff members who were covering the event used Northwestern’s directory to obtain phone numbers for students beforehand and texted them to ask if they’d be willing to be interviewed. We recognize being contacted like this is an invasion of privacy.”
“While our goal is to document history and spread information,” the newspaper said, “nothing is more important than ensuring that our fellow students feel safe.”
Even Maggie Haberman was setting them straight!
One of the biggest problems US journalists face in this day and age is how few people understand what standard news-gathering process looks like. A student newspaper saying normal process is somehow a bad thing is incredibly troubling. https://t.co/LPaBrIUCwW
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 12, 2019
She wasn’t the only one.
There's a lot wrong with this, but this graf just stunned me.
Asking someone if they want to be interviewed is "an invasion of privacy"?https://t.co/EbAtE7xShv pic.twitter.com/1hSw0Xix4E
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) November 12, 2019
The student newspaper at Northwestern, home to one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country, has issued a groveling apology for…doing journalism, during & after Jeff Sessions’ speech on campus. As a proud alum, I’m embarrassed by this: https://t.co/ggEPyXU8n5
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 11, 2019
https://twitter.com/mattsebastian/status/1194061639395397632
Of course, there’s always that one guy who can succinctly fit the local story into the broader issue:
Journos are more outraged at college kids in journalism school at Northwestern than professional journalists helping cover up Epstein and NBC's abuse for YEARS
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) November 12, 2019
Pussification: The Effeminization Of The American Male
by Doug Giles
Doug Giles, best-selling author of Raising Righteous And Rowdy Girls and Editor-In-Chief of the mega-blog, ClashDaily.com, has just penned a book he guarantees will kick hipster males into the rarefied air of masculinity. That is, if the man-child will put down his frappuccino; shut the hell up and listen and obey everything he instructs them to do in his timely and tornadic tome. Buy Now: Pussification: The Effeminization Of The American Male