Freedom of the Press

As a result of the items printed by this school paper the school’s Athletic Director has been charged by the U.S. District Attorney’s office and has stepped down from his position. Others have also been involved in the investigation and at least one Dean has left her position because of the scandal. For me, this proves that the basic aspects of freedom of the press are very important to our Democracy.

Jim Bob, at 7:10 am EDT on August 11, 2006

Further info...

Hi,

I thought I’d add some further details for those interested.

I was the editor-in-chief during the whole mess at Barton. I wrote this statement the summer after I left Barton, intending it for legal purposes, which it was used for. I’ve edited down quite a bit (sorry it’s still so long).

Originally, myself as well as a couple other students were going to be plaintiffs in the case. However, I guess the attorneys felt it was more clear-cut as an employment law case.

Anyway, I’d like to say that I really learned a lot at Barton County CC.

Mrs. Schartz was a great instructor and adviser. I decided to Barton a year early when she was non-renewed.

In fact, I learned enough about how to create a newspaper and manage a staff that, when I became dissatisfied with the quality of the newspaper at Fort Hays State, I was able to start my own independent publication, called The Edge. It even wone some awards last year in Kansas. I raised some startup capital and it is self-sufficient through advertising, operating with a small, dedicated volunteer staff. But I wouldn’t have had the know-how without learning so much at Barton.

Anyway, hopefully you find the written statment interesting. If you have any questions for me or anything, feel free to shoot me an email at zach_becker@hotmail.com.

Thanks!

-Zach Becker Former Editor-in-Chief Interrobang student newspaperBarton County Community College

———————————————-

WRITTEN STATEMENT

I first began attending Barton County Community College at the start of the fall semester in August 2003. Before the semester began, I enrolled in the Newspaper Production class, which is the class in which the Interrobang student newspaper is produced. Jennifer Schartz was the advisor to the Interrobang at that time.

During the first semester, I worked on the paper as a staff writer. I went on to become the editor of the Interrobang at the start of the spring semester in January of 2004 after our former editor, Jeremy Clawson, was deployed to Afghanistan.

I believe that a series of events involving the Interrobang and the stories it reported angered those in Barton’s administration and/or trustees to the point where they decided to non-renew the contract of Schartz.

Although I think events during the 2003-2004 school year were the main catalysts for the non-renewal decision, I believe the situation may have started before my arrival on staff.

I know that the Interrobang reported on many sensitive subjects during Schartz’s time as advisor, including the allegations of fraud against the wife of Barton’s President, Dr. Veldon Law, as well as a homecoming incident involving Barton basketball player Robert Whaley, other Barton students, and students from Garden City Community College.

By far the biggest controversy covered during the fall semester 2003 by the Interrobang was the start of an internal investigation into academic dishonesty at Barton.

The first story appeared in the Oct. 9, 2003 issue, and detailed that Missouri basketball player Ricky Clemons managed to earn 12 credit hours from Barton in the 2002 summer, while getting 12 from another institutuion at the same.

The Interrobang quoted one of his teachers, who claimed he didn’t know whether Clemons was in class or not while receiving those credits.

Clawson must have taken some heat from the administration after this, and ran an editorial in the Oct. 23 issue that responded to those who questioned the Interrobang’s coverage of the investigation.

Later, the Interrobang also reported on questionable credits obtained by former Barton basketball player Randy Pulley to Mizzou. Clawson also wrote several columns that were critical of the administration that may have angered them further.

I know at some point after the internal investigation started during the first semester, Clawson scheduled an appointment with Coach Campbell to discuss Interrobang coverage.

From what Clawson said afterward, Campbell met him somewhere, bringing along a couple of assistant coaches.

Clawson said Campbell did not seem happy with the Interrobang coverage.

Clawson said Campbell asked him, “How am I supposed to use your newspaper to bring recruits to Barton with what your newspaper prints?” Clawson said he replied by saying, “I didn’t know the Interrobang was supposed to be a recruiting tool.”

For the Oct. 9 edition, I was assigned a story explaining campus security.

In an interview with the director of campus security, he made the comment that, “One year, we’ll have trouble with the track team; one year, it will be the basketball team; the next year, it will be the baseball team. Another year, it will be all three.” The quote went in the story.

Schartz emails documents called reporter critiques to people quoted in the Interrobang in order to see how accurate the rookie reporters are. The security director sent one back concerning my article and said I did great, he was quoted accurately, etc.

Later, though, it appears someone higher up was unhappy with his comments about the athletic teams.

He asked the Interrobang to print a retraction, but since he was accurately quoted, we didn’t. He instead wrote a letter to the editor apologizing for his comments.

After that, the security director refused to speak on the record to the Interrobang ever again because he said it gets him in trouble.

Those were some observations for the first semester. At the start of the second semester, as stated before, I took over as editor of the Interrobang.

I think the boiling point hit when the Interrobang received a letter from Michel Diboty, a Barton student who had recently been cut from the basketball team on Feb. 24.

The letter to the editor from Diboty originally was 1600 words long and did contain some inflammatory statements about Barton basketball Coach Dave Campbell. The final version was about 450 words long after I edited it. We also sent it to Student Press Law Center and they advised us on any portions they felt were dangerous as to libel and I took that in consideration during further editing.

The reason Diboty sent the letter was because the coach had singled him out on Barton’s official website, stating the reason for the students dismissal, when the coach had not done that for any other players who had left the team. Diboty felt this was humiliating and unfair.

My staff and I felt that it was only fair that since Campbell had his say on the website, that the former basketball player be allowed to have his side of the story heard in a public forum. My staff and I also decided in fairness to allow Campbell to respond to the letter.

I went down the athletic office to talk to Campbell. I stopped him and told him who I was. He called over two people, assistant coaches perhaps, and he said “This here boy is from the Interrobang.”

I could tell right away he didn’t like the paper (or me, apparently).

Anyway, the four of us went into his office and I got in about 10 seconds of trying to explain to him that I was trying to be fair and give him the ability to comment on the letter when it’s published.

He cut me off, though, and told me we don’t have his permission to publish anything about him. He told me that if that letter goes in the paper, he’ll sue the Interrobang and me, personally.

He continued his threats of lawsuit, and also said that he thought our paper was turning into the National Enquirer.

I was probably only in that room for about 3 or 4 minutes, until I had enough.

I basically just declared to him that the letter was being published no matter what he said, and then abruptly left, leaving him our edited version of the letter to read.

Schartz wrote a letter to Dr. Law Feb. 27 explaining how the Interrobang had received Diboty’s letter and described my encounter with Coach Campbell.

Schartz and I went to hand deliver the letter to Law, as well as discuss the situation with him.

We also gave him the current edited version of the Diboty letter. He expressed dissapproval with the letter, saying Campbell might have a case against the paper. Law seemed more visibly stressed than I had seen him, especially by the news that the letter would be printed.

Law also somewhat agreed with Campbell’s claim that the Interrobang was turning into the National Enquirer, saying the paper had become a “rag” on the college.

After further editing, the letter ran in the March 11, 2004 issue, accompanied by a column I wrote in which I detailed why I ran the letter. Also, the original Barton website report concerning Diboty ran. I made no mention of my experience with Campbell and merely stated that Campbell declined comment.

However, on the morning that paper came out, Schartz received a letter from Randall Henry, the college attorney.

In it, he stated, among other things, that “the administration has decided that no more letters to the editor will be published which are by and large personal attacks upon other members of the Barton County Community College family.”

Mrs. Schartz shared the letter with myself and other staff members.

Mrs. Schartz sent a letter back saying that she felt they were asking her to violate the First Amendment and she wouldn’t do that. She also tried to explain to them the rights of the student press under the law.

No official response was given to that letter.

However, on March 24, I happened upon Dr. Law between classes and he told me that I had handled the Diboty situation very well. He said he was originally concerned with the edited version we gave him. He said it looked like I put a lot of thought into it and that I left out some unconfirmable things and also left out some things that were true. He made no mention of Mrs. Schartz’s letter.

Myself, my staff, and Schartz felt that the situation was diffused after that talk with Dr. Law. I decided that there was no need to press the issue further, and didn’t run the censorship letter for the next issue. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, thinking they were merely misinformed and wouldn’t press the issue further.

Towards the end of the second semester, I recall Schartz telling me of an informal meeting she had with one of the deans. Schartz told me how the Barton dean informed her that “people didn’t like her” and the two of them discussed the reasons for this and how to solve it.

Not long after that, at an April 20 board of trustees meeting, they decided not to renew the contract of Schartz. I was shocked to hear this news.

We still had one more issue of the Interrobang to release, though, before the end of school. I wrote two articles, as well as an editorial concerning her dismissal. Many students also wrote letters of support.

Prior to Schartz’s non-renewal, I had scheduled an appointment to talk to Dr. Law to talk about the end of the internal investigation. Dr. Law’s secretary accused me of beating a dead horse- another sign of administrative contempt for our paper- but found a time to schedule the interview.

Anyway, I talked with Dr. Law for a while about the investigation, but then turned to Schartz’s situation. Most of the quotes from him are in my articles.

From that conversation with Dr. Law, I came away with few, if any answers. One thing I did ascertain, though, is that Dr. Law believes that the administration does have the right to some control of the content of the Interrobang.

This whole situation makes little sense to me in the fact that I see no reason to non-renew Schartz. The only reason I can think of for them to get rid of her is that she refuses to take a part in censoring the content of the Interrobang.

I’ve taken several classes from Mrs. Schartz, and she is a great teacher. I’ve also seen her teaching records, and they are all very positive.

She connects with her students, as evidenced by the large outcrying of support for her in the form of letters to the editor in our paper.

During her time as advisor, the Interrobang has gone from basically a poorly made newsletter into a real newspaper that reports on real issues. We’ve won awards, which included All-Kansas awards in her three years and one gold award from the Kansas Associated Collegiate Press. Journalism enrollment has gone way up.

Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains must be the truth. The administration won’t give a reason for firing her. I believe the factors I mentioned in the previous paragraph eliminate any logical reason for dismissing her. The only possible solution I can see is that after she refused to cooperate with their letter ordering administrative censorship of the paper, they saw no other option but to eliminate Schartz from her position as newspaper advisor. Without her advising students as to their free press rights, and with a different advisor who is more willing to control newspaper content, Barton’s administration will have much more control over stories they don’t want to be in the newspaper.

Zach Becker, Editor and Publisher, The Edge at Fort Hays State University, at 2:45 pm EDT on August 12, 2006