Tuesday, February 17, 1998
Time to investigate the investigators
RESPONSIBILITY: Daily Bruin needs to practice more sound
research to regain its integrity
By Kendra Fox-Davis
The Daily Bruin is responsible for disseminating accurate,
factual information to the student body on issues ranging from
world politics to arts and entertainment. As far as a campus
newspaper goes, they do a really good job. Most of the reporters
have no formal journalistic training beyond writing for a high
school paper. Most don’t even get paid for the long, tedious hours
spent getting the paper ready for publication every day. And every
now and then, on days when the sun is shining particularly bright
in the lives of new, eager, freshman reporters, they run across a
good headline. Maybe that’s what happened when freshman reporter
Dennis Lim decided he was going to "take down student government"
two weeks ago. Maybe it was the long, stressful hours at the
typewriter, the uncertain scramble for coveted editorial positions,
the natural human desire for the spotlight that has our campus
newspaper being trashed for unethical reporting in the L.A. Times
for their coverage of Monica Lewinsky. Whatever prompted The Bruin
to attack the Student First! candidates currently in student
government does not really matter. What does matter is what was
ignored, forgotten and abandoned in The Bruin’s coverage of student
government in the last two weeks: the truth.
The manufactured scandal of UCLA’s Campaigngate began with the
resignation of the student government Finance Committee Chair
Robert Rhoan. The day of his resignation, Rhoan came into The Bruin
office hoping to expose Students First!. What followed were several
serious allegations ranging from the misuse of office resources
during elections to violating campaign expense guidelines. In the
two weeks that have followed, student government has been the
subject of intense scrutiny by Bruin news reporters, primarily Lim,
regarding the events that happened in our offices prior to the
election, how much money candidates spent during elections, and how
we documented our elections spending.
It is the responsibility of The Bruin to report on issues that
affect students, and so it makes sense that they would be
interested in investigating allegations against student government.
But it is also their responsibility to present both sides of every
story, to make an effort to retain some speck of journalistic
integrity, to not surrender the objectivity and public trust to a
juicy story. There are three main questions we, as students, should
raise in the reporting of Lim and The Bruin. First, what efforts
were made by The Bruin to ensure the "source" of the allegations,
former presidential appointee Rhoan, was a legitimate source of
information? Second, what efforts were made to verify the
allegations Rhoan leveled against Students First!? Third, has The
Bruin presented an objective view in the articles that have been
written, including their source and student government views?
I work in the USAC president’s office as the chief of staff. A
couple hours after Rhoan walked into our office, announced he was
resigning, and walked out, we started getting phone calls from The
Bruin. I thought Rhoan was resigning for exactly the same reasons
he wrote in his resignation letter – academic and personal
responsibilities. In fact, I was sure that was why he was
resigning. Our office, like many of the other student government
offices near his, had consistently dealt with complaints from
students who came to turn in funding requests only to find a locked
door. His poor performance had been criticized by The Bruin just
four months ago on Oct. 22, in an editorial that said "Government
is not a one man show … USAC Finance Committee Chair Robert Rhoan
currently has all the financial decision making power to himself
… Someone needs to keep an eye on the one man writing those
checks. One politician cannot be entrusted to take on roles which
should be handled by committees." Seems like before Rhoan became a
Bruin songbird he was the subject of a little controversy
himself.
Rhoan’s performance as the finance committee chair was
inadequate, and his resignation was prompted by official complaints
by student groups who felt he was unfairly denying them funding
hearings. The Bruin was aware, prior to his resignation, that he
was under fire for unethical distribution of funds because they had
reported on it. Yet they chose to believe him when he came forward
with allegations of student government being corrupt after he
resigned. It’s funny that Rhoan never, in the three years he was
involved in student government, approached any student government
officers with concerns regarding our campaign finances. Why?
Because there were no campaign violations. Rhoan is just angry that
his poor performance forced him out of office, angry that student
government officers were not willing to cover up his trail of
funding violations, and looking for somebody to listen.
Enter freshman reporter Lim, private eye.
Lim is the Bruin reporter responsible for writing three
conflicting articles on Students First!, the first "Students First!
accused of campaign fraud" on Jan. 28, the second "Finance records
under scrutiny" on Jan. 30 and the third five days later on Feb. 4,
"Students First! may be exonerated by records." It appears that he
got a tip, and then found out it was wrong. That’s no problem –
everybody makes mistakes. What is a problem is that this same
reporter said he was personally going to "take down student
government!" How can students expect to read a fair and accurate
account of student government if the very person who is writing the
story has voiced his bias against student government? I do not know
why The Bruin has reporters who want to "take down student
government." In the past three years under Students First!, our
campus has lower fees, more financial aid, free textbooks, active
student representation on all university committees, increased
cultural programming, and a host of positive, progressive programs
that benefit all students. That does not mean that if a Students
First! candidate violated the rules he should be let off the hook,
but it does mean that we have proven, as a political slate, that
our priority is students, and that we have a proven track record of
working on real issues.
There were two allegations made in The Bruin’s articles. No. 1:
student government offices increased their use of local phone calls
in May of spring quarter. This is true. But current council members
were not in those offices spring quarter, because they were in the
process of running for office. When The Bruin contacted one of the
council members from that year, they were told that programming
routinely goes up spring quarter, and given numerous campaigns that
student government was working on during spring. The allegation
made by The Bruin’s questionable source, Rhoan, is that he heard
office staff people using the office phones to solicit votes for
Students First!. He even said " I heard these calls and it really
disgusted me" ("Students First! accused of campaign fraud," Jan.
28) But he was not too disgusted to apply for a presidential
appointment after we won. Not too disgusted to continue working in
student government. Not too disgusted to collect his stipend check.
His lack of creditability should have led The Bruin to question why
he was coming forward now, and if his allegations were even true.
An increase in phone calls could mean anything, including calling
about elections. The truth is, offices do make phone calls to
encourage students to vote – but not to vote for a specific party.
And really, student government does have better things to do than
get together in a smoke-filled room and decide how to best exploit
the campus phone system.
The second allegation is that Students First! exceeded their
campaign spending limits. Do any of you remember seeing candidates
and volunteers struggling up and down Bruin Walk with posters tied
around our shoulders? Well, those are the posters Rhoan alleges we
spent over $3,000 on. When The Bruin began investigating this
allegation, they called the printing company that we contracted
with to make the posters. That was the right thing to do. But
instead of speaking with the company representative who we worked
with, they called the company’s chief financial officer, who
verified that he had a copy of a bill for some posters that was for
"around $3,500". Had The Bruin been forward with student government
officers when they were questioning us regarding our expenditures,
we could have told them that we received a discount because we were
students, and because we placed a bulk order for the 11 candidates
that ran as a part of the Students First! slate. We could have
given them a contact number for the company representative we
worked with. Instead, they printed a very inflammatory and
one-sided article before they received verification from the proper
printing company unit, and before they checked our finance records
in the Elections Board office.
The records of our campaign expenditures were turned into the
Elections Board, verified by both the Elections Board Chair and the
Investigations Chair. But that did not make it into The Bruin’s
story. In fact, Michael Now, who served as our liaison, issued a
statement to The Bruin, saying in part "It was all just an
administrative error … (the chief financial officer) just began
working there, so he didn’t know about the deal we had set up".
Basically, The Bruin has received an invoice confirming that we
received a discount, and did not spend over the amount of money
allowed by the elections board. The question is, will students keep
being force-fed negative, unsubstantiated allegations against
student government because reporters are on a mission to "take down
student government," or will they let us continue working for
students and report on things that matter?
I read something disturbing about our paper in the L.A. Times.
The editor of The Bruin was talking about their decision to run the
story about Lewinsky, even though it went against their efforts to
take The Bruin above tabloid reporting. The Bruin editor in chief
talked about "how ambitious and out for blood the media is. They’ll
get anything they can. And I’m part of ‘they.’" Students should not
support or react to a paper that purposefully targets student
government, has an "out for blood" approach to reporting. The Bruin
has accused Students First! of making unchecked campaign
violations. But in the midst of shady informants, misleading
reporting, and tabloid-style journalism, shouldn’t students be
asked who’s checking them?Fox-Davis, a fourth-year women’s studies
student, is the chief of staff of the USAC president’s office.