The Washington University Office of Public Affairs’ (OPA) media guidelines have sparked controversy following the September 11 terrorist attacks, after a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter was denied access to a September 20 peace protest in the Brookings Quadrangle.
In letters and opinion-editorials appearing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Student Life during the last month, opponents of the policy have argued that the university administration is trying to curtail freedom of speech by not allowing media personnel onto campus without their approval.
During the September 20 protest-an assembly of approximately ten students-the Office of Student Activities asked the OPA to restrict media access to campus, upon the request of a group of students.
The current WU media guidelines stipulate that “reporters and television and radio news crews wishing to interview,
to photograph and/or videotape/broadcast on the WU campus must notify the Public Affairs’ office” and that “the areas in which photography/ taping/ broadcasting is allowed may be further restricted at the discretion of the Public Affairs office of the university
administration.”
The guidelines also require that a member of the OPA must accompany all electronic media on campus and that campus police be informed of all electronic media crews coming on to campus.
A non-bylined editorial in the Post-Dispatch objected to the decision to bar media from a campus protest on the grounds that rather than promoting open discussion as a university should, the restriction of media access sent a signal that some ideas are too dangerous to be expressed.
WU junior Shawn Kumar and senior Amy Hill, both of whom have been active in campus protests, said they were worried that the guidelines allowed the university to limit media coverage at those events. WU
alumnus and former editor of Student Life Dorothy Brockhoff has written a letter to the
editors of the Post-
Dispatch voicing the same
concern. Fred Volkmann, vice chancellor for Public Affairs, disagreed, stating that the university’s media guidelines are for the protection of the WU community.
“[The WU policy] has to do with people
coming on the campus and appearing here in such a way that it could be perceived that they were entering places where they were not
supposed to be,” said Volkmann.
Besides citing the possibility of students being harassed by reporters, Volkmann
mentioned two reasons why the university should protect its students rather than letting them fend for themselves.
He pointed out that there are WU students who are not yet 18 and cannot legally make the decision to be interviewed if their parents don’t want them to do so. In addition, he said, having an open campus can cause security issues. Volkmann said it would be possible for criminals to pose as reporters in order to gain access to the campus.
He added that the restrictions were important in order to prevent the media from gaining access to sensitive faculty research areas.
The OPA guidelines have been in place for decades. After the protest, however, writers from the Post-Dispatch asserted the novelty of the entire policy.
Post-Dispatch columnist Jerry Berger wrote in his column that, “on-camera interviews with members of WU’s faculty may be scarcer and look a little more crowded if local news bosses abide by a new set of guidelines issued by the school’s press police.”
Volkmann said the misunderstanding arose because the Post-Dispatch did not have WU’s media guide.
Administrators did, however, revise the guidelines in late September, because they were ambiguous in their discussion of photographers access to campus. Volkmann also said that they made the revision to integrate the print and electronic media guidelines, which previously were separate. These revisions, however, did not affect the policy that affected the Post-Dispatch reporter at the September 20 protest.
“The only place where you have media surprise expressed was the Post-Dispatch because they didn’t have the guidelines,” said Volkmann. “They’ve never asked for them, and we’ve never had to send them. We’ve always had such good relations.”
Volkmann explained that other media sources weren’t surprised by the revision of the guidelines.