To the editor:
We have a few comments about Susanna Henighan's article in last weeks edition of the Review regarding the theft of 7 to 800 copies of The Voice.
We would like to know why Henighan's article focused so heavily on the possibility that Trembles Our Rage is involved in the theft of The Voice. In the article, neither Turaj Zaimi nor Scott Hennessy offer any explanation for their assertion that contributors to Trembles Our Rage stole copies of The Voice. An accusation of theft is extremely serious. Henighan's article treats a rumor as fact.
The short article mentions the anonymous student publication Trembles our Rage three times. It lists no other suspects in the theft of The Voice, offers no challenge to the assertion of Turaj Zaimi and Scott Hennessy that Trembles Our Rage was to blame, and features a quote by Hennessy calling contributors to Trembles Our Rage cowards. As such, it gives a strong impression that the people involved in Trembles Our Rage are guilty of the theft. However, we were unable to find mention of any actual evidence that people involved in Trembles Our Rage stole copies of The Voice.
Journalistic responsibility requires two independent, direct sources for all information appearing in print.
The two sources Henighan cites in her article are Turaj Zaimi and Scott Hennessy. As they had no direct knowledge of the theft they must be considered second hand sources of information, and the information they provide is merely hearsay. Furthermore, these sources are not independent of each other and should therefore be treated as a single source.
In addition, Scott Hennessy's article in The Voice demonstrates his extreme antipathy towards contributors to Trembles Our Rage. Thus, any accusations he makes must be understood as biased, but this fact goes unmentioned in Henighan's article, which treats him as a reliable source.
Finally, Henighan makes the leading statement, "Several individuals involved with trembles our rage did not respond to messages left early Friday morning." The message to which this sentence refers reached the email accounts of the contributors at 2:39 a.m. on Friday and invited them to, "call the Review office any time before our noon deadline tomorrow [Friday]." Thus, contributors had between 2:39 a.m. and noon to receive the message from Henighan, compose a response, and reply to the Review. This failure to offer the people accused of theft a fair opportunity to respond cannot be considered responsible journalism.
In any event, the lack of response to an accusation is hardly grounds for presumed guilt or justification for biased reporting. Yet, as we have outlined above, several features of Henighan's Review article strongly imply the guilt of contributors to Tremble Our Rage in spite of the absence of reliable evidence to that effect.
Thank you for your time. We look forward to your reply.
Editors' Note: The Review substantiated the allegations against Trembles Our Rage with several independent sources who spoke to us off the record or on background, which is why their names do not appear in the story. This is a common way of confirming stories, especially controversial ones. A couple Trembles Our Rage members who received e-mail from Henighan checked and read their messages before noon and still did not call, though they knew of our intention to print the allegations. It is hard to include the perspective of a group of people that consistently refuses to speak with the Review, and it is not unusual for Review staffers to try to contact sources for late-breaking stories Friday morning.
Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 24, May 9, 1997
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