Journalists crave completion. A full story, which answers the what, when, where, how and who of an event, is the goal. For the common good of a community – be it for the entire world or a university campus – journalists are taught to tell the truth, and as much of it as possible.
For the past three and a half years, I have reported on events pertaining to Seton Hill University (SHU), and for the same amount of time, I have strived to tell the truth in its entirety. I have succeeded. I have failed. I have never been complete.
By Amanda Cochran,
Editor-in-Chief
Journalists crave completion. A full story, which answers the what, when, where, how and who of an event, is the goal. For the common good of a community – be it for the entire world or a university campus – journalists are taught to tell the truth, and as much of it as possible.
For the past three and a half years, I have reported on events pertaining to Seton Hill University (SHU), and for the same amount of time, I have strived to tell the truth in its entirety. I have succeeded. I have failed. I have never been complete.
A journalist may never complete a story; but for a journalist in a college or university setting, in particular, this is often the case.
For media covering crime in a public backdrop, for example, names, ages, residences and other details are released. For a college journalist though, these details are not available. The rules are quite different, especially in covering crime.
There are laws to empower college and university journalists, however. The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, for example, provides for an annual crime report. This gives some idea of what is going on around SHU over a year’s time. However, it has its limitations. The full picture isn’tgiven because the statistics are all alleged reports of crimes and do not list the outcome of the individual cases.
The Gene Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act is better. The act mandates that all schools receiving federal aid, such as SHU, provide a police blotter or log, which reports all the campus incidents including their type, what happened and the status of the case.
However, there is one element in the blotter that is missing that a journalist craves – the names of those involved in the incidents.
There are laws in place to protect minors in the public sphere, but when one is over 18, their name is released by police to the media. Most, if not all, SHU students are adults. If a crime is committed on the Hill, however, the punishment is usually administered by SHU and the names of these adult offenders are never released.
Mike Dell, chief of campus police, said students with three to four repeat offenses may be reported to Greensburg police. Before that, though, SHU tries to work with students in a process called �mediation.� The process offers alternatives to police involvement, such as community service, which is much like the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition that is administered by the local court. Dell said this saves time.
So, hypothetically speaking, this means that if a student would commit offenses that one sees in our own Police Blotter on page 5 of this edition, such as drunkenness and theft one step inside the property line of SHU, the offender would be saved from seeing their name, age and residence grace the pages of local newspapers.
One side of me wishes that SHU would turn over all of its cases to Greensburg police. The humiliation of seeing their name in print alongside their offenses would make them wake up and realize that their behavior affects everyone, and not only those on the Hill. Sweeping that behavior under the rug two or even three times isn’tthe answer, particularly in a learning community where we should learn not only from our professors, but in the real world outcomes of our actions.
The other side of me – the perhaps more rational one – remembers the freshman I once was and all the mistakes I made on the illusive path to coolness. I feel for that student who is living up to everyone’s expectations but their own. Getting caught is the least of one’s worries.
I�ve not always agreed with the university, but I do respect SHU in giving us another chance to learn from our mistakes. Still, the amount of chances could be curtailed a bit. Also, the information given to make the rest of the university aware of those offenses could be enhanced by publishing the SHU police blotter online for easy access.
The Setonian, though, will continue to do with what we have. The complete picture may not exist for us, but we�ll do our best to sketch out the truth and let our readers color between the lines.
Amanda Cochran
Editor in Chief
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