Adopting DEI means a news outlet will be ‘suspected of being leveraged by that point of view,’ DePauw professor says
Northwestern University’s student newspaper recently published a new opinion policy and editorial guidelines that include the use of a transgender journalism stylebook and the elevation of student “Diversity & Inclusion Chairs” to editor roles.
The Daily Northwestern’s opinion policy and internal guidelines for its student editors, published in May, raised concerns about bias from a journalism professor at another private institution, DePauw University.
However, when asked these concerns and the reasons for the changes, David Samson, editor in chief of The Daily Northwestern, defended the policy.
“Our opinion policy and the editorial explaining our approach in greater detail speak for themselves and aren’t in need of further clarification at this time,” Samson told The College Fix in a recent email.
In a May 27 editorial, the student editors described their new policy and internal guideline changes for editing opinion pieces. They wrote, “The new policies are the result of a quarter-long collaborative process undertaken by members of The Daily’s current Editorial Board in consultation with former editors in chief and opinion editors.”
As part of the changes, the newspaper “elevated the role of our Diversity & Inclusion Chairs to include editing stories consistently, including opinion pieces.”
These DEI student leaders will use, among other things, a transgender resource to make their edits.
“Our D&I Chairs are consulting several stylebooks to update The Daily’s style guide, including but not limited to the AP Stylebook, the Asian American Journalists Association Style Guide and the Trans Journalists Association Stylebook and Coverage Guide,” the editors wrote.
The Trans Journalists Association Stylebook and Coverage Guide is a resource developed by transgender activists for journalists “to provide a foundation for covering trans people with accuracy and nuance” and address “many common language and reporting difficulties,” according to its website.
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For example, the guide tells journalists to avoid using the terms “biological male” and “biological female” because they are “often used by anti-trans groups to invoke a person’s assigned sex at birth as their ‘real’ gender, in contrast to their gender identity.”
The Northwestern student editors acknowledged that their new guidelines may conflict with “politically charged” and debatably “hateful” opinion pieces.
“In such situations, editors will be tasked with carefully weighing our obligations to each respective value given the context of the piece at hand,” they wrote.
The editors also wrote that the newspaper has “an interest in platforming unpopular opinions in furtherance of ideological diversity within the opinion pages. We hope to foster informed discourse and allow readers to come to a better place of understanding with those with whom they stridently disagree.”
DePauw University communications Professor Jeffrey McCall’s opinion about the changes were mixed when contacted by The Fix.
“I do think it is quite important for all newspapers, college newspapers included, to be as transparent and clear as possible in informing readers about the paper’s opinion policies,” McCall told The Fix in an email last week.
“That hasn’t always been the case, so current efforts to clarify are to be commended, including at Northwestern,” he said.
However, McCall also expressed concerns about the ideological parts of the new guidelines, telling The Fix that “if any opinion section is to truly provide a full range of input from the marketplace of ideas, it should be free of influence from activist or ideology-driven sources.”
“DEI is now generally considered a sociopolitical initiative, so a newspaper that is adapting to that cultural trend will be suspected of being leveraged by that point of view,” McCall said.
He felt it appeared that Northwestern’s paper is catering to these types of influence when developing its opinion policies.
McCall said he believes “news outlets should develop content policies that are broad and neutral in scope, avoiding pressure from activist groups, including identity-based journalism associations.”
The Fix also contacted Northwestern journalism Professors Beth Bennett and Debbie Cenziper and several conservative student organizations at the university by email to ask about the newspaper’s changes, but none responded.
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