The Daily Cal's Editorial Policies

I've had a few chats in the past few days about The Daily Cal and how it handles its opinion page. Yaman Salahi, a recognizable SJPer, tells me that when he was writing an op-ed for The Daily Cal on Nov. 18 and when Dalia Marina wrote an op-ed last Friday, The Daily Cal specifically asked them not to provide a narrative or specifics of what happened at the Eshleman brawl.

I asked The Daily Cal, but Editor-in-Chief Bryan Thomas declined to discuss the specific case, citing a "standard procedure not to comment on the specific procedures for each piece in the paper, but instead outline our general policies." No explanation for why this is the standard procedure was included, which I'm aware is also standard procedure for most organizations, though I think folks ought to be able to articulate the reasons for their procedures.

While a vague description of their op-ed policy was mentioned, nothing in it really explains why such a narrative was prohibited. ("There is often a back-and-forth between the writer and the opinion page editor about the content of the writing. The intent is not to change or shape the opinion in any way, but to make sure the content abides by our editorial standards and fits within our guidelines.") What those standards and guidelines are, or how they fit in to this case, is left as an exercise to the reader, I guess.

It's clear that making accusatory factual statements is not prohibited. John Moghtader's op-ed accused Oscar Mairena of having what I assume would be called a bigoted status message during a Senate meeting. Mairena denied this, and The Daily Cal has issued a correction to the op-ed piece on the topic.

It's also clear that The Daily Cal does not universally fact-check their pieces. ("All content presented as fact in the Daily Cal goes through a fact-checking process. When verification of assertions of fact are made impossible by circumstance, the statements will be clearly attributed. This holds true in both news articles and opinion pieces.") It took me about 30 seconds to write an e-mail asking Mairena about Moghtader's claim, and I got a response in 10 minutes. This particular claim seems to be on the easy end of the fact-checking spectrum, but wasn't checked.

Given the Daily Cal's position, I don't really have much choice but to accept Salahi's version of events. We're left speculating why they won't allow this particular set of factual claims to be made in an op-ed. Salahi's view is:

I believe the Daily Cal is worried about a lawsuit and is thus abridging students' abilities to comment on what happened that night. I can understand why that would apply to me, because I only have second-hand information, but I don't understand why that would apply to Dalia, who was on the scene.

It's no secret that Moghtader has been threatening lawsuits left and right, but Thomas points out that The Daily Cal gets lawsuit threats weekly, so they ought to be prepared to deal with such things.

This is an excellent time to remind folks of my biggest concern with The Daily Cal, which is that they appear disinclined to rock the boat. They seem to be the last people to uncover anything that could be considered close to a scandal, and do very little to pursue such issues. It feels like they simply allow themselves to be used as a mouthpiece for various folks. It's this kind of low-impact journalism which makes me wonder just how willing they are to take on well-connected, powerful interests. That's why Salahi's claims seem to fit very well within the pattern they've defined themselves by in recent years.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 2/22/2009 09:41:00 PM #
Comments (5)

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Comments:

hhahh beetle are you kidding

dina omar wrote an article with a narrative (a libelous one at that). So much for that policy. Marina's article also includes a narrative.

# posted by  Anonymous : 11:13 PM, February 22, 2009

 

I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. I don't think there is a policy.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 11:18 PM, February 22, 2009

 

"This is an excellent time to remind folks of my biggest concern with The Daily Cal, which is that they appear disinclined to rock the boat."


Dude, take a journalism class. You do not take sides (you report) , yet this may be your democratic party leaning. They love narratives skewed. So you want a little NYTimes here at Berkeley? NYTimes is not a newspaper anymore but an advocacy junket for the far-left?

Thus their financial crisis because they no longer report facts -- and they even admit it now too. Nobody wants to read crap, thus their lay-offs.

"The Daily Cal specifically asked them not to provide a narrative or specifics of what happened at the Eshleman brawl."

You have a problem with an op-ed about the incident, when in fact the authors are leaders in their organizations which have staunch convictions to their partisan sides which then are "always correct." The 'The Daily Cal' had a right not to allow such 'narratives, ' in this international explosive conflict. Narratives create histories which often are not objective or lest correct in all factual perspectives. The only op-ed that can and should be allowed is the solution for peace in Palestine -- not at Cal, because these groups are only reflections of the larger territorial issues over on the other side of the globe.

# posted by  Anonymous : 11:44 PM, February 24, 2009

 

I'm sorry, but "rocking the boat" is not taking sides. It's challenging the narratives provided by others. It's finding stories that people won't hear about otherwise, even if some folks might not like that those stories are reported on. One doesn't have to take sides to do it.

You mentioned my "democratic party leaning," which pretty much robs you of any credibility on anything else.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 11:48 PM, February 24, 2009

 

"I'm sorry, but "rocking the boat" is not taking sides. It's challenging the narratives provided by others. It's finding stories that people won't hear about otherwise, even if some folks might not like that those stories are reported on. One doesn't have to take sides to do it."

Same anon. as '11:44 PM, February 24, 2009'

I disagree, one side must be developed. All narratives create histories, which is like saying each contains a shred of 'black or white' in issues. Since statically and empirically proved in faculty studies this school is basically 98 % Liberal or Democratic Party members who vote that way. Tending not to rock the boat means little to nothing. Liberals tend to associate with the repressed classes, thus in this issue the Pal student groups over a series of incidents that have 'fuzzy' facts. If you could point me to any hard core republican Daily Cal News peices I will be appreciative. There are plenty of left-leaning peices as it is the norm. So rocking the boat is subjective in this case. Do you mean they should take a harder stand against the Israeli student groups by uncovering some dirty laundry and publishing it to create some controversity to rile up the students? Certainly that would be ' rocking the boat.' no? You are too vague on what your position is as a commentor in regard to this phrase.

And libertarians, are in fact often more 'left' than Democrats IMO.

The issues are the left, associate; and the right looks for ideas.

Right: They see the Palestinians using archaic legal codes and connected to emotional theocratic religion -- draped in quasi-modern democratic electoral.

The left sees the Pals as "victims' of a brutal 'monster' race connected to the brutal monster race of the USA republican party.

These are two totally disconnected charges and accusations. There is no common ground on the issues. So how can you ' rock the boat' when there are actually two boats to be rocked? The answer is which one is to be rocked?

black issue verses white issue.

And I do not care about "credibility " it is about getting to the point.

Here is an idea for you ( if you have not said it or though about it beforehand) for rocking the boat. The people ( and Student Union laws) are robbing innocent people by forging this recall without a democratic common consent. The student body did not vote in an election to make the recall. (!!!) It was a bunch of signatures that were propagated in spamming that held black and white perspectives in which the 98% chose the 'repressed class,' over rational thought. It is an irrational recall. In many instances in history from east to western cultures, they called this type of reasoning barbarianism. Today, we call this populist or communist collusion.


You have 'all' innocent students who are real humans paying the price for advocates of a political persuasion. That is not government, that is barbarianism.

# posted by  Anonymous : 8:24 PM, February 25, 2009

 

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