On Nov. 5, Northwestern University’s student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, covered a protest when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to speak at the university. The editorial staff sent one reporter to the protest and a photographer; the other reporter was sent to cover the actual talk from Sessions.

After stories with interviews and photos were published, The Daily Northwestern received a lot of backlash from students that were involved with the protest and were interviewed. Five days later, the newspaper released an editorial about what happened to receive the backlash and how they responded within their own newsroom.

The newspaper received complaints about the photo coverage of the protest, and “some protesters found the photos posted to reporters’ Twitter accounts traumatizing and invasive,” according to the editorial. 

When pictures are taken at an event like the protest, those students are presumably passionate about the topic at hand. If the protesters wanted to ensure safety and a lack of public acknowledgement through photos, they would not have shown up. Any “normal” protester should be encouraged that their voice was heard through media, whether it be The Daily Northwestern or any other news outlet. These students were also in a public area, where they should know any of this could happen.

One of the bigger points made in the article that went around on social media was how the reporters contacted some students before the protest for interviews. Reporters used Northwestern’s directory to find cell phone numbers of other students and texted them to see if they would want to be interviewed. The editorial said, “We recognize being contacted like this is an invasion of privacy,” but does it push the boundaries of “privacy?”

In a world where everything is digital, reporters text, call or even email sources for interviews. Many people prefer to be contacted even through text when it is a consistent enough source, where there is a trusted relationship built between the reporter and source. The directory is public to Northwestern students; anyone could have texted them. Is it a bit odd to text for this type of story? Perhaps. But, the students that received texts could have simply said, “No, thank you.”

We, as The Oswegonian, believe in reporting on the news that is not always rainbows and butterflies. The original coverage from The Daily Northwestern was spot on: it sought truth and reported it, as the Society of Professional Journalists says to. But backing down because students did not feel safe tarnishes what we, as journalists and reporters, stand for.