Racism has been a buzzword around Ball State University’s campus this year.
From people yelling racial remarks out of cars to the many, many events the university and other organizations have sponsored, racism has been a major topic of dicussion.
Less than a month ago, a group of about 75 Ball State students were playing a game of midnight tag on Lafollette Field. The University Police Department received numerous calls complaining of loud noises, so officers went to disband the game. The students were told to leave, and the officers thought they did. However, UPD received more calls later about noise problems. Once again, officers went to break up the group of students who had reformed by Worthen Arena.
Students said the officers were disrespectful and forced them to leave.
Of course these students were forced to leave.
They were disrespecting the community by being loud late at night, and they were also breaking the law by violating the city’s noise ordinance. The officers had every right to tell them to break it up. They had done it once before, and by not listening the first time, the students were showing disrespect for the officers by restarting their game.
Students also said that the officers had been racist by treating the black students differently from other students.
Students held a rally the next day where they marched to the police station while chanting and making speeches about racism on campus. However, when students actually filed complaints about the officers’ handling of the incident, not one complaint referred to racism. If the officers did exhibit some racist actions, why didn’t the students submit a complaint about that? Instead, the complaints addressed the officers using inappropriate language and forcing the students to leave.
The university did as it should have and investigated the complaints. It was proven that one of the officers used profanity when addressing the students. He used the phrases “get the hell out of here” and “get your asses out of here”,” Heather Shupp, executive director of University Communications, said.
The officer was verbally reprimanded, as university rules specify. No evidence of racism was found during the investigation.
A story done by TV station WTHR-13 from Indianapolis on the investigation did not come out and say this was a racism issue, but it was heavily implied.
For example, the story said “13 investigates on the discipline and a noise ordinance that is not so black and white.”
This story, like the story in the Daily News, also addresses the issue of one student, sophomore Jocelyn Jackson. Jackson, who happens to be black, received the one noise ordinance violation ticket during the night’s events. She was walking away from the scene next to freshman Amanda Clifft, who happens to be white. The two woman say Clifft yelled out “Ball State police shoot to kill.”
Officers thought Jackson had yelled it out, not Clifft, so they cited Jackson, the students said. Neither said they thought officers cited Jackson because of her race.
The story on WTHR-13 strongly implied it was a racial issue in its coverage. Footage of two students, one black and one white, walking together was shown with a voiceover saying “two young women walk a path of justice together.”
Everyone is making this situation into a racial issue, but no proof has been given. Complaints were filed, an investigation has been completed, and nothing has been found to say that this had anything to do with race.
If this is a racial issue, and someone has proof, I hope they come forward and share it. If not, I hope people will stop sensationalizing events such as this.
Shame on the TV station for making an already tough situation on Ball State’s campus worse by emphasizing only the negative aspects of this incident and not fairly reporting the story.
-Submitted by Emily Ortman, News Editor
When I walk into Student Government Association’s Student Senate every week I usually do not know what I will be writing about in the paper the next day. The article usually involves legislation or issues brought up in the meeting. But sometimes, how something happens is more of a story than what happens.
Several interesting things worth writing about came up at senate on Wednesday, but what struck me were the repeated motions to either eliminate or shorten meetings and reports. In the interest of time, senators chose to skip almost all of the caucus and committee meetings and reports.
Vice President Rodney Blount commented on the senate decision during his comments, and reminded senators they have a responsibility to the student body to take the time to discuss concerns.
Student Senate is young at the moment, with many new members. While senate did not abuse the ability to skip sections of the meeting last term, it did happen. This is still the first month of the new terms, and I thought it was interesting how easily the motions to hurry the meeting along were passed.
While important and interesting issues and topics were brought up at senate, it was one of those instances when how the meeting happened stood out more than what happened at it.
Submitted by Erin Moody, chief reporter
Each day, the staff of the Daily News tries to have a package story prepared to fill the main news hole on page one. (That would be the big story in the middle of the front page.) We have planning meetings once a week, along with other smaller group meetings to coordinate these large, usually more in-depth, stories.
The package for Wednesday’s paper was supposed to be an informational graphic about tornadoes. We felt this was approriate because tornado season just started, and Indiana is in what some call Tornado Alley.
However, when we sat down in Editorial Board Tuesday night, with snow covering campus, we had to reconsider our package. Snow doesn’t exactly convey the idea of a tornado, so running a package on torandoes was not as timely or newsworthy as we had hoped.
We decided to hold the tornado package to run on another day, and instead we decided to package our story on the expansion of the Ball State recreational center. This story had a lot of information and interesting to students. The rec center addition has also been a major issue on campus and in Student Government Association.
Overall, our decision to package the rec center was probably a smarter move than trying to run something about tornadoes when it was snowing outside.
Submitted by Emily Ortman, news editor, and Brandon Stuck, assistant design editor
Who decides what is the most important element in a story?
In journalism classes, we learn about six news values that should be included in a news story (not all of them must be present).
When discussing Thursday’s story “Village scuffle injures athlete,” the editorial board of the Daily News found most of these elements in this story.
Usually, we use one or two of these elements in the lead, or beginning, of the story based on the importance of the news value. However, in this story, all of it was important, leading us to the question “What was the most important element in this story?”
What do we focus on: the fight, the people involved or the location? How do we include all of it in the lead?
During the editorial board meeting, the editor-in-chief said it best when he asked “What is the headline?”
We decided it was all important, but after harping on the lead for more than an hour, we decided on “A Ball State administrator’s son was arrested Tuesday following a fight behind a Village bar where he fired a gun, and his friend struck a university basketball player’s head with a tire iron, police said.” (You can read the whole story here)
We broke some style rules, but overall it relayed our message fairly well.
Submitted by Jessica Kerman, online editor and news reporter