In the most recent issue of The Recorder (Vol. 107 Issue 21) two articles on the front page were printed under the larger headline of ‘Heading into New Decade, CCSU Plans for the Future.’
The article ‘Master Plan Includes Facility Upgrades,’ written by news editor Matt Clyburn, contained quotes from members of the CCSU administration pulled directly from a document hosted on the CCSU website titled ‘Overview of the Master Plan.’
As it turns out, the information in the document that was subsequently used in our article is not only years old but also incorrectly attributed. While The Recorder was under the initial impression that the plan was current we also assumed that because of the heading ‘Office of the Vice-President, Student Affairs,’ that the words were that of Dr. Laura Tordenti, which they were not, which was incorrect of us to assume. While the old document shouldn’t have been used by us at all, anything ‘said’ should have be attributed to the office of those respective administration members and not themselves personally.
Despite blame that some might place on the actual CCSU web page, The Recorder, mainly myself and Matt, would like to take full responsibility for the mistakes made in the articles. In journalism, you can’t take anything for face value. While this is something that we felt we already understood, we found out that you really can’t take anything for face value. There are no excuses for mistakes such as these and facts like a proposed new fieldhouse or renovations to the student center should have been double and triple checked by myself and the writer. Unfortunately, they were not.
Since I’ve been editor-in-chief of The Recorder I’ve aimed for a new level of honesty, integrity, fairness and balance in order to gain trust from our audience, the CCSU community, and it bothers me and my staff that in this situation we have not been able to maintain that level. We will use it as another lesson in our growing journalism careers.
While we cannot take back what we printed, we have pulled the article from our website and are working on a new and updated story about facilities on campus in regards to the master plan to place on the front page next week.
I myself take this situation very seriously and would like to apologize to anyone misquoted in the article or affected by the mistake.
Michael Walsh
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]