Must not defend Trump admin at Harvard

The leaders of Harvard University’s student newspaper defended a basic tenet of journalism Tuesday amid a swirl of controversy on campus.

After reporters for The Crimson attended a Sept. 12 protest on campus that called for the abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they reached out to ICE to allow the government agency to respond to the criticism.

ICE didn’t respond to the inquiry, and the reporters included a sentence noting that in their report published the next day.

In the weeks since, members of the student-led immigration advocacy group that organized the protest, Act on a Dream, have expressed their disagreement with the student journalists’ decision to seek comment from ICE and have started a petition to demand The Crimson not contact ICE for comment in its future reporting.

“We are extremely disappointed in the cultural insensitivity displayed by The Crimson’s policy to reach out to ICE, a government agency with a long history of surveilling and retaliating against those who speak out against them,” says the petition, which had collected more than 670 signatures by Wednesday morning. “In this political climate, a request for comment is virtually the same as tipping them off, regardless of how they are contacted.”

The petition calls for a policy change, an apology, and a declaration of The Crimson’s “commitment to protecting undocumented students on campus.”

Kristine E. Guillaume, The Crimson’s president, and Angela N. Fu, its managing editor, responded with a note to readers Tuesday defending the reporters’ request for comment from ICE and explaining that it is standard practice across the journalism profession to allow people and organizations that are criticized a chance to respond.

Guillaume and Fu defended the right of journalists to seek comment from any relevant party and said The Crimson’s practices have been reviewed and affirmed by the Student Press Law Center and the Society of Professional Journalists.

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