PressEthic

Jillian Bandes, a student and reporter for college newspaper The Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina, was fired from the paper for misleading sources on her intent in interviewing them. One of the many articles reporting on it was found in The Boston Globe

After writing an inflammatory opinion column on the necessity of racial profiling at airports, the three sources she interviewed complained that she had told them she was writing an article on Arab-American relations post 9/11. She then made it seem in her article as if they had been in support of racial profiling. Her article is incredibly insulting, but she is entitled to her own opinion. It's obvious in the piece that Bandes is going for the Ann Coulter route, gaining fame (any publicity is good publicity) by making brazen statements. She even quoted Coulter in her article.

I think the moral of this story is clear. The first thing that every teacher tells you in Journalism school is don’t lie. Don’t lie to your sources, and don’t lie to your readers. I find it so hard to believe that Bandes had no misgivings about quoting her sources after misleading them. She completely manipulated what they said.

Bandes writes “I want Arabs to get sexed up [at airports] like nothing else. And Arab students at UNC don’t seem to think that’s such a bad idea.”

She then goes on to quote the students she interviewed, making it seem as if she had actually asked them if they would mind being racially profiled. But they weren’t asked that.

Bandes responded to what she deems a “culture war” on poynter.org. She believes that she did not misrepresent her sources, though she admits to leaving out the stories that they shared with her about being racially profiled. She does a good job of defending herself in the article, but my gut instinct is that if you have every one of your sources upset about the way they were portrayed, then something is awry. She could have still used their quotes, and let her own strong opinion ring clear. But it was completely unprecedented to make it seem as though others shared her view if they did not.