Tuesday, February 12, 2008
News / News Bites Did Medill's Dean Lavine make up a quote?
Posted by Michael Miner on Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 6:58 PM
A Medill senior has gently but firmly suggested that his school's controversial dean made up a quote. David Spett, a columnist for the Daily Northwestern (and a Reader intern last summer) took a close look Monday at the "Letter From the Dean" (pdf) by John Lavine in the 2007 spring issue of the school's alumni magazine. Lavine touted an undergraduate class in "Advertising: Building Brand Image" that had created what Lavine described as a "fully integrated marketing program to uniquely impact teen driving."
Since shifting from Medill's money-making Media Management Center to take over the entire school in 2005, Lavine has alienated a lot of NU faculty (and alums) by acting with little regard for faculty governance to rewrite the curriculum and more closely integrate Medill's two wings -- its journalism and marketing programs. So it's not so surprising that he would tout a marketing course. He wrote that a Medill junior had told him: "I came to Medill because I want to inform people and make things better. Journalism is the best way for me to do that, but I sure felt good about this class. It is one of the best I've taken, and I learned many things in it that apply as much to truth telling in journalism as to this campaign to save teenage drivers." It was a message that couldn't possibly have suited Lavine's purposes any better.
But "the phrasing "struck me as odd," Spett commented in his Daily Northwestern column, and he wondered why Lavine hadn't identified the student. What's more, a Medill instructor told him "sure felt good" sounded like a favorite construction of the dean's. Spett also noted that Lavine had used two other anonymous students as sources (one of them earlier in the same piece). So he did a little digging. There were 29 students in the advertising class (five of them juniors), Spett reported in the Daily Northwestern, and he contacted every one. "All the students denied saying the quote, even when I promised not to print their names."
Spett then recorded an interview with Lavine saying he'd taken the quote from an e-mail from a student whose identity he now couldn't remember.
"We cannot be certain these quotes were fabricated," Spett concluded. "But at the very least, I find reason to be suspicious."
He's not alone. Faculty sources who prefer not to be named for obvious reasons tell me that some of them suspected the quotes were bogus, but beyond grousing among themselves they did nothing to act on their suspicions. As far as they know, Spett was the first person to confront the dean. "There are people on the faculty who are very nervous," one source said. They weren't ready to challenge Lavine's integrity over something like this -- a dubious quote he could shrug off by allowing that he probably should have named the kid.
Spett said no one put him up to this. He says since he read Lavine's piece last year "it had been in the back of my mind that it might be something worth looking into." In January the Daily Northwestern made him a columnist and he went to work.
Lavine hasn't returned my calls. Neither, for that matter, have several other professors.
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I'm a journalism teacher. At a minimum, I'd flunk a student who couldn't back up the use of an anonymous source -- and I have.
I'm a Medill freshman, and I think it's incredibly incompetent of Lavine to not keep a record of sources for anything. Medill classes are very clear that we must ALWAYS have a source list and be transparent about our reporting techniques. And e-mail interviews are NEVER allowed at Medill. Hypocritical? I think so.
Clean up your act, Lavine!
Enjoyed reading Mr. Lavine and Mr. Clemens defend themselves in the morning newspapers. Clemens leaves some reasonable doubt about veracity.
This is just sad on so many levels. We all knew Medill 20/20 was a bad idea, mostly because of concerns about the training time it took away from the fundamentals of good writing and reporting. This just proves it.
Context people. The Dean's column was nothing more than an invitation to read the magazine. Some apparently didn't take it well. Yes, the Dean's use of quotes is sloppy; he'd have done better to paraphrase and indicate "students have tole me ... " For those actually doing research here, the Dean has used fluffy, unnamed quotes in prior columns for the magazine. Nobody complained ... until somebody had an agenda.
So it seems to me that Lavine broke the first rule of journalism: DO NOT FABRICATE STUFF TO SUPPORT YOUR OWN AGENDA. This is not complicated: Either Lavine managed to find and quote the least compelling orators in Medill's history , OR he made up a few quotes to support his much-maligned agenda. I don't care if it's just a column in a magazine. It's a column in a magazine that is going to people who care deeply about Medill and--more importantly--about high-quality journalism in an era of war, strife, economic stress and increasing government control over the lives of average citizens (from both political parties). So maybe Lavine would have been more careful if he were reporting for the NY Times? It's just a measly column in an alumni mag? If so, shame on him. He should treat Medill's alumni with the same respect he'd give to the NY Times' readers.
E-mail interviews are never allowed at Medill? Why would that be? They're an excellent way of asking a precise question of someone who then enjoys the time to compose a precise answer -- and both parties have a record of the exchange. Plus they're a great time saver.
Aw, come on guys, don't get on your dean's case. As an alum, I might dislike it, but as a prof at Syracuse's Newhouse School, I love it. Hey, our applications go up every time something comes out about him.
Okay, Dean Lavine. I have absolutely had enough. I came into Medill with a 50-pound laptop and stars in my eyes. I was excited about journalism and I was excited about Medill. But after a year and a half of poorly designed busywork courses and the talented professors wasting away trying to teach them, you have worn away at my idealism and, baby, this is just the icing on the cake. I am more ashamed to be a future Medill grad every day. I am so glad this (okay, alleged) quote-fabrication scandal is getting serious national coverage (All Things Considered, anyone?). Pretty soon this will blow up in your face. You'll get yours yet. Or at least that's what I have to believe so I don't go through the rest of my undergraduate career dreading the embarrassment I'm bound to feel at my diploma ... uh, happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
a "fully integrated marketing program to uniquely impact teen driving"?? Lordy... He should be fired just for writing like that.
Check out this blog http://www.journalistsspeak.blogspot.com created by Medill School of Journalism students in response to the dean's unnamed sources. The blog includes links to all the mainstream media coverage of the issue and an exclusive interview with Daily columnist David Spett, who broke the story. The goal of the blog is to engage as many people as possible from the Medill School of Journalism community to discuss their concerns about the issue of the dean's anonymous sourcing, as well as other recent changes in the journalism school. We hope this blog will foster constructive conversation about these topics.
Mr. Lavine has a sketchy past when it comes to ethics. He wrote the entrance essay for his son's admission to high school. The most ironic thing about it is that the topic was on social responsibility. Mr. Lavine is only interested in feeding his ego and in the advancement of his wife and youngest son. His ethics have always been elastic, so this is no surprise to me. Karma is neutral and always comes back to you.... right John?
As an alum of the undergraduate Medill magazine program and a current student in the preparatory classes for Medill's graduate Magazine Publishing Project, I'd like to point out that in reputable magazines EVERYTHING - including the editor's letter - is meticulously fact-checked and must have complete sourcing and backup. So his excuse that it was "just a letter" and that he can't remember where the supposed email went is pretty flimsy. That said, it is with mixed emotions that I look ahead to the day when I have not one but two degrees from this increasingly sketchy institution.
Mike, back to your tangent: I guess I could see why you'd discourage e-mail interviews for journalists in training. It encourages the "list of questions" approach instead of the "let's see where this conversation takes us" approach. Deadly in the hands of an amateur.
True. But the "let's see where this conversation takes us" approach is just as deadly, especially when the person at the other end of the phone doesn't particularly want to have a conversation with the amateur but is willing to answer a couple of questions. Even if use of this approach teaches the survival skill of plowing on, the e-mail list of questions (which a Reporting 101 prof could review before they're sent) teaches students how to organize their thoughts and figure out what it is they're after. Does anyone teach interviewing?
The new dean makes me embarrassed to be an alum. He betrays the ethical principles of journalism that Medill was founded on, claiming evolution of media as his excuse.
I read the piece. Even as a proud Illinois alum, I can feel Northwestern's pain. It wasn't long ago that our chancellor, Richard Herman, decided the College of Communications needed transformed. Herman allowed committee to make a determination. I never thought I'd have to beg for my College's life. What's my point? Administrators (in the college itself and higher) intent on throwing their weight around endangered the college. But officials in Swanlund Hall eventually listened to the stream of irate alums. It sounds as though it's time for NU alums to do the same.
It's a good thing he put the tired adverb "uniquely" where he did, ahead of the vapid "impact." My experience says that anything that "uniquely impacts" is neither unique nor effective. I'm only a public high school graduate, albeit 57 years ago, but I expect that a Dean be able to write better than that.
Wow. I would never have imagined someone would make me miss Michael "No Sex, Please; I Have No Libido" Janeway.
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