Student journalists at Northeastern demand greater transparency from university officials

Reporters at The Huntington News, a student publication at Northeastern University, turned to social media the week of June 15, 2020, to demand greater transparency from the administration. The Huntington News claims the newspaper is routinely denied access to key administration officials, including the university president, with whom they say they have not spoken in years. The newspaper’s demands arose amid growing anxieties about whether Northeastern will open in the fall 2020 semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Key Players

Kelly Chan is editor-in-chief of The Huntington News and alleges there have been “few instances” where higher-up faculty have been open to interview requests from the publication, according to The Boston Globe. “The whole process is very tedious and hinders student reporters, especially when we are reporting news that’s specific to the Northeastern community, like reopening school in the fall,” Chan said.

Joseph Aoun is the seventh president of Northeastern University, a position he has held since 2006. Aoun has interviewed with CNN, Forbes, and The New York Times in the seven years since he was last interviewed by The Huntington News, Chan told The Globe. 

Deanna Schwartz is managing editor of The Huntington News. On June 11, 2020, Schwartz tweeted that the university public relations department “once again” declined a request for an interview, lamenting that Aoun has not granted an interview to The Huntington News since 2013. Schwartz’s tweet attracted the attention of multiple journalists, including many Northeastern alumni. 

Further Details

A day after Schwartz’s tweet, former News staffer Sully Barrett created a petition demanding that Aoun meet regularly with newspaper staff. As of July 21, the petition had come within 67 of reaching its 500-signature goal. “The News works to ‘maintain a high standard of quality’ of reporting, but it is unable to do so without transparency from the university’s foremost leader,” the petition reads.

Northeastern’s senior vice president for external affairs, Michael Armini, said inquiries from The News are evaluated on a basis identical to requests from all other independent publications. The Boston Globe’s Diti Kohli noted that the paper severed all financial ties with the university in 2008. 

Armini further claimed that administration officials had denied requests for interviews in the past due to frequent errors in News articles. “Our concern is that there’s a constant requirement for a correction after almost every story we read,” he told The Globe. “Stories are frequently inaccurate, and efforts to obtain critical facts are treated as a last-minute afterthought.” 

Chan fired back, saying reporting from The News has required few corrections in the past several years, and none since she assumed the position as editor-in-chief. Schwartz added that corrections are often sent from the university media relations office that the newspaper has deemed unwarranted or invalid. 

Journalists from The News added that they have received “degrading” remarks from university media relations in the past. Vice President of Communications Renata Nyul called Schwartz’s work “badly done” when submitting an error correction to the publication in the fall of 2019, saying reporters made “absolutely no effort” regarding the story’s accuracy. “You seem to spend no time looking at the facts on your own,” she added. “I know you are passionate about journalism, but if you are pursuing it as a career path you have to practice it with more rigor and adhere to the basic rules of integrity with every single story. Please consider asking professional journalists to help you.”

After a Globe reporter read aloud Nyul’s comments to Armini, he said, “It sounds like the person on my team was trying to teach.”

Alumni have since come to the paper’s defense. BuzzFeed Senior Creative Director Rachel Zarrell wrote in a News op-ed titled “Journalism alumni call on Aoun

to stop stonewalling The News” that the school regularly pushes away student journalists it claims to support. “For a school that prides itself on being an experiential learning university, this stonewalling of student reporters contradicts that,” Zarrell said in an interview with The Globe. “It’s hard to present yourself as caring about journalism if you don’t talk to your student reporters transparently.”

Outcome

Northeastern University officials grant interviews to The Huntington News

Following pressure from Schwartz’s online campaign, Northeastern University granted the paper a 30-minute joint interview with Provost David Madigan and Chancellor Kenneth W. Henderson on June 16, as well as two media relations officers. “That’s something,” said Schwartz. “But we are the students of the school, and we are paying their salaries, and they need to talk to us regularly.” Chan and Schwartz have since increased their demands, requesting that Aoun be available to interview at least once a semester.