Student Guide to Resources, Rights
and Responsibilities

III. F. Student Press Policies

• Objectives of the Student Press Committee

  The Student Press Committee was established to create and maintain an environment at La Salle in which high quality student newspaper, radio station, and other media forms, including electronic, will most effectively benefit the entire University community. The committee will formulate general policies as needed for the Collegian, WEXP, etc., and advise the Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students on related matters.

  Responsibilities

  • The committee will approve the appointment of the Editor-in-Chief of the Collegian, and the General Manager of WEXP, from those selected by the respective staff editorial boards, or from other applicants should these boards fail to submit candidates.
  • The committee will meet for consultation with student editors, station managers, etc., at the request of any committee member or of the Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students.
  • The committee may conduct post-publication/broadcast reviews of Collegian content and WEXP programming.
  • The committee may review financial and legal matters involving the Collegian and WEXP.
  • The committee may question any policy of the Collegian and WEXP and make recommendations to their governing boards.
  • The committee will function as a sounding board to resolve disputes among faculty, administrators, students, advisors, editors, and station managers.
  • The committee may, with just cause, impose censure, suspension, or removal upon the Editor-in Chief of the Collegian or the WEXP General Manager, provided the student has been given the opportunity to present his or her case before the committee (see the section below entitled “Guidelines for Censure, Suspension, or Removal...”).
  • An additional responsibility of the committee is listed in the section below entitled “Appointment of Collegian Advisor and WEXP Advisor.”
  

• Membership

  • The Committee will be composed of the following thirteen (13) members:

    • Administrator: One (1) representative for the Administration to be appointed by the Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students for a three (3) year term.
    • Faculty Members: Three (3) to be appointed by the Faculty Senate, for a three (3) year term.
    • Faculty: Collegian Advisor
    • Faculty: WEXP Advisor
    • Administrator: Channel 56 Station Manager
    • Student: Collegian Editor
    • Student: WEXP General Manager
    • Students: Two (2) at-large student members, neither of whom should be a member of any publication/station whose Editor/Manager sits on this committee.
    • Students: Two (2) non-senior, non-voting student members, one from the Collegian staff, and one from the WEXP staff.

  • Officers:

    • Chair: To be elected annually by the Committee membership, from among the three faculty members appointed by the Faculty Senate and the administrative appointee. His or her duties will be to preside over meetings and to act for the Committee in matters which it delegates.
    • Vice Chair: To be elected annually by the Committee membership, from among the three faculty members appointed by the Faculty Senate and the administrative appointee. His or her duties will be to preside in those instances when the Chair is not present.
    • Secretary: To be elected annually from the Committee membership. His or her duties will include taking minutes of the meetings and distributing them to all members of the Committee in a timely fashion.

  • Meetings

    • Regular Meetings: The Committee will meet at least once during each semester.
    • Special Meetings: The Chair may call a meeting whenever circumstances warrant doing so.

  • Quorum

    A quorum will consist of six voting members, at least two of whom are students.

  • Amendment

    These bylaws may be amended by at least six voting members, at least two of whom are students, provided the amendment was listed on the agenda, and provided a quorum is present.

  • Appointment of Collegian Advisor and WEXP Advisor

    The Advisors are appointed by the Provost upon the recommendation of the Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students and the Student Press Committee in accord with the affirmative action guidelines of the University.

  • Advertising Guidelines

    As publisher/manager, La Salle University grants to the student editors and managers freedom to develop their own policies covering news, editorial, and advertising and protects them from arbitrary sanctions due to student, faculty, administrative and/or public disapproval of policies and content. While granting this freedom, the University limits editorial discretion in the area of advertisements under points 1 through 4 below. However, as publisher/manager of the Collegian and WEXP, the University strongly encourages editors and managers to accept any advertising announcing a speech or similar campus gathering devoted to the spread of ideas.

    As publisher/manager, the University retains the right to exclude advertisements for:

    • drugs and alcoholic beverages, and related products and services;
    • tobacco products;
    • research/term paper services; and
    • counseling, services, and off-campus events pertaining to abortion, contraception and reproduction.
  

• Guidelines for Letters to the Editor, Guest Columns, and Opinion Pieces

  The La Salle Collegian is a newspaper run by the students of La Salle University in Philadelphia, serving the entire University community. Letters, guest columns, and opinion pieces will be considered for publication provided they meet with the editor’s standards and can be allotted space. All letters must be signed, must include the address and telephone number of the sender, and must be under 300 words. The Collegian reserves the right to condense and edit as needed. Editorials reflect a consensus of the Editorial Board and are not necessarily the views of the University. Signed columns and cartoons are the opinion of the writers or artists.

  • Guidelines for Censure, Suspension, or Removal of the Collegian Editor-in-Chief or WEXP General Manager

    The Student Press Committee encourages free inquiry and free expression for student editors, and views the invoking of censure, suspension, or removal of a student Editor-in-Chief or General Manager as extraordinary. If such punitive action must be taken, the committee feels equally bound to guarantee procedural fairness to any student editors or radio managers, and therefore establishes the following guidelines for appropriate process:

    Any formal action by the committee will be preceded by open exchange by all members. If some action is not decided through this exchange, or if the Editor-in-Chief or General Manager refuses to appear to discuss his/her rationale for conduct, the committee can officially censure him or her.

    Suspension or removal of the Editor-in-Chief or General Manager may be imposed only after the student has been informed in writing of the charges against him or her, and after he/she has been provided a fair opportunity to refute the charges. The Editor-in-Chief or General Manager would be entitled to an advisor, could call witnesses, conduct cross-examination, and so forth. The committee’s decision may be appealed directly to the Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students.

    There must be at least six votes in favor of censure, suspension or removal. The Editor-in-Chief or General Manager under consideration would not vote.

  

• Preamble to Appendices A and B

  The Student Press Committee expects that the student media will respect the University Mission Statement as well as the statements in Appendices A and B, with their guidelines applied to both print and broadcast media.

  

• Appendix A: “From the Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students”

  (by American Association of University Professors, National Student Association, Association of American Colleges, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and National Association of Women Deans and Counselors)

  Student publications and the student press are a valuable aid in establishing and maintaining an atmosphere of free and responsible discussion and of intellectual exploration of the campus. They are a means of bringing student concerns to the attention of the faculty and the institutional authorities and of formulating student opinion on various issues on the campus and in the world at large.

  Whenever possible the student newspaper should be an independent corporation financially and legally separate from the university. Where financial and legal autonomy is not possible, the institution as publisher of student publications, may have to bear the legal responsibility for the contents of the publications. In the delegation of editorial responsibility to students the institution must provide sufficient editorial freedom and financial autonomy for the student publications to maintain their integrity of purpose as vehicles for free inquiry and free expression in the academic community.

  Institutional authorities, in consultation with students and faculty, have a responsibility to provide written clarification of the role of the student publications, the standards to be used in their evaluation, and the limitations on external control of their operation. At the same time, the editorial freedom of student editors and managers entails corollary responsibilities to be governed by the canons of responsible journalism, such as the avoidance of libel, indecency, undocumented allegations, attacks on personal integrity, harassment, and innuendo. As safeguards for the editorial freedom of student publications the following provisions are necessary.

  • The student press should be free of censorship and advance approval of copy, and its editors and managers should be free to develop their own editorial policies and news coverage.
  • Editors and managers of student publications should be protected from arbitrary suspension and removal because of student, faculty, administrative, or public disapproval of editorial policy or content.
  • All University published and financed student publications should explicitly state on the editorial page that the opinions there expressed are not necessarily those of the college, university or student body.
  

• Appendix B: Code of Ethics or Canons of Journalism American Society of Newspaper Editors

  The primary function of newspapers is to communicate to the human race what its members do, feel, and think. Journalism, therefore, demands of its practitioners the widest range of intelligence, or knowledge, and of experience, as well as natural and trained powers of observation and reasoning. To its opportunities as a chronicle are indissolubly linked its obligations as teacher and interpreter.

  To the end of finding some means of codifying sound practice and just aspirations of American Journalism, these canons are set forth:

  • Responsibility

    The right of a newspaper to attract and hold readers is restricted by nothing but consideration to public welfare. The use a newspaper makes of the share of public attention it gains serves to determine its sense of responsibility, which it shares with every member of its staff. A journalist who uses his power for say selfish or otherwise unworthy purpose is faithless to a high trust.

  • Freedom of the Press

    Freedom of the press is to be guarded as a vital right of mankind. It is the unquestionable right to discuss whatever is not explicitly forbidden by law, including the wisdom of any restrictive statute.

  • Independence

    Freedom from all obligations except that of fidelity to the public interest is vital.

    • Promotion of any private interest contrary to the general welfare, for whatever reason, is not compatible with honest journalism. So-called news communications from private sources should not be published without public notice of their source or else substantiation of their claims to value as news, both in form and substance.
    • Partisanship, in editorial comment which knowingly departs from the truth, does violence to the best spirit of American journalism; in the news columns it is subversive of a fundamental tenet of the profession.

  • Sincerity, Truthfulness, Accuracy

    Good faith with the reader is the foundation of all journalism worthy of the name.

    • By every consideration of good faith a newspaper is constrained to be truthful. It is not to be excused for lack of thoroughness or accuracy within the control or failure to obtain command of these essential qualities.
    • Headlines should be fully warranted by the contents of the articles which they surmount.

  • Fair Play

    A newspaper should not publish unofficial charges attacking reputation or moral character without opportunity given to the accused to be heard; right practice demands the giving of such opportunity in all cases of serious accusation outside judicial proceedings.

    • A newspaper should not invade private rights or feelings without sure warrant of public right as distinguished from public curiosity.
    • It is the privilege, as it is the duty, of a newspaper to make and complete corrections of its own serious mistakes of facts or opinion, whatever their origin.

  • Decency

    A newspaper cannot escape conviction of insincerity if while professing high moral purpose it supplies incentives to base conduct, such as are to be found in details of crime and vice, publication of which is not demonstrably for the general good. Lacking authority to endorse its canons the journalism here represented can but express the hope that deliberate pandering to vicious instincts will encounter effective public disapproval or yield to the influence of a preponderant professional condemnation.