When a journalist writes an article for publication, they have a responsibility to gather all the data available and write a balanced piece based on those facts.  This requires writers to seek interviews with people familiar with the issue at hand.

Those being interviewed, however, often worry that they will be misquoted or misrepresented.  This is understandable, since they often don’t know who else was interviewed, what other facts will be brought up, or what angle the article will be written from.

To mitigate the risk of being misquoted, reporters often request to audio-record an interview in order to be certain that all quotes are directly transcribed.  Some journalists even go so far as to send the source their quotations in writing before publication. When a source responds in writing, this risk easily eliminated.

But the source might still believe they could be “misrepresented,” or the article might not be written as they would like, so some sources request that the journalist send them the article before publication so they can look it over, presumably because they might be able to fact-check certain statements or suggest other revisions of content.

This is sometimes known as “pre-publication review,” that is, allowing a source to review an article before it is published.  Journalistic ethics, in general, discourages this practice for several reasons.

First, no matter how much you emphasize to a source that you are only sending them the article for preview purposes, you are implicitly allowing the source to give you some sort of approval for the article before it is published.  If the source has editorial control over the content of the article, it is no longer an objective piece of journalism – it is a press release.

Second, the source might leak the article prior to publication.  If they dislike the article, they can easily send it to a competing paper in hopes that they will write a rebuttal article or break any news before you do.

Third, if the article is particularly unfavorable to the source, they might contact advertisers or donors and petition them to drop funding unless the article is pulled.

These are all ways in which sources might exert editorial pressure over a paper if they are given pre-publication review privileges of an article.

Fact-checking does not require pre-publication review.  Fact-checking requires a rigorous check of sources’ quotes against the transcript, sources’ quotes against other sources, and fact-claims against other reliable , objective sources.  Certainly you can follow up with your source if you need clarification on a particular fact, but showing them even a slightly controversial article before publication will rarely result in anything but editorial pressure.

Does pre-publication review happen in the journalism world?  Of course.  Is it ethical?  Generally not.

When writing a story for The Observer recently, I was told by multiple sources that unless I gave them pre-publication review for “fact-checking” and “quote-verification,” they would not “contribute to or condone” the article.

The source was offering quotes via written means, thus quote-verification was, for the most-part, unnecessary.  Fact-checking, as I mentioned before, rarely requires pre-publication review.  It was unfortunately obvious, as the source made clear, that they wished to “condone” the article, or approve it.

A source does not approve an article.  It is not a press release.  The Observer, and all news sources for that matter, would be incredibly boring, uninformative, and bias if we merely published press releases.

I remember as a freshman I attended a brief introduction meeting for The Heights, where I was informed that it was their policy not to allow any pre-publication review other than simple quote-verification if absolutely necessary.  Likewise, The Observer generally follows that policy as well.  Any responsible journalist, whether they are in college or in the professional world, should adopt a similar policy as part of their personal journalistic ethics.

Sources who refuse to comment on a story because they will not be granted pre-publication review do themselves and their organization a disservice.  They prove that they are not interested in transparency or honesty; they are interested in control.

The Observer will continue to uphold its publication to high ethical and editorial standards in order to serve the Boston College community and all of our readers.

We are excited to announce that today we are publishing our first issue of the semester! Pick up a copy at one of our many news stands around campus, or read it online!

Mark you calendars!  The Observer at Boston College has released its publishing dates for the Fall 2011 Semester:

• September 20
• October 4
• October 18
• November 1
• November 15
• December 6

The Observer can be found in our marked news bins around the Chestnut Hill campus.  Subscriptions to The Observer are currently $25 per academic year.  Papers will be sent by first class mail.  Contact us to request a subscription.

I started off this past summer with a few celebratory fist-bumps after finishing the last Spanish class of my life. The next few weeks I spent working in Brussels as an intern for a member of the European Parliament, specifically representing the southeast part of England. I lived with two different host families during this time and learned a lot about the history and culture of Belgium. This was my first time in Europe, and I spent most of my non-working hours on an unofficial diplomatic mission, promoting American values and superiority in various Belgium bars and pubs. Needless to say, by the time I left continental Europe they had all come around to the idea of a two-party political system, and had agreed that ‘football’ was played with shoulder pads and helmets, not with shin guards.

The rest of my summer consisted of working as an intern for Bank of America in St. Louis, catching up with good friends from high school, taming a wild stallion, and spending a few afternoons floating on local Missouri Rivers. I enjoyed seeing my family and friends back home while forming new opinions to write about for The Observer this year. Although this summer was great I’m happy to be back in action at BC, and look forward to junior year.

Morgan Chalfant spent her summer in her hometown, Longmeadow, MA, tutoring elementary, middle, and high school students in Math and English. Particularly, she helped an 8th grade math student tackle the final exam of her accelerated Algebra course and advance to Geometry. She also advised an upcoming high school senior about the process of developing and writing the college essay. When working with a few elementary students in both Math and English, Morgan helped the students practice complicated addition and subtraction while additionally providing them with topics about which to write weekly journal entries. As she is a double major in Mathematics and English at Boston College, Morgan put her skills to great use during the summer months and thoroughly enjoyed helping younger students to perfect their problem solving and writing abilities. Though she plans to stay in Boston next summer and take on an internship in journalism, Morgan will undoubtedly try to continue corresponding with the students that she tutored in order to provide them with additional help.

On the weekends, Morgan worked as a costumed character promoting used cars for a local dealership. She portrayed many types of animals including a shark, a donkey, and a zebra. The job wasn’t always glamorous, especially since it was hot in the suit during the summer, but Morgan thinks it prepared her well for the rigors of the working life.

Summers on Cape Cod are always fun. From the lazy beach days, to the family barbecues, to seeing old friends, long lasting memories are always created. However, I went into this summer knowing that it would probably be my last one before I need to do something productive, like an internship or a job in my potential career field. I needed to make the most of my last full summer on Cape Cod for a while. So, I spent as much time on the beach as possible! But, as everyone knows, living at BC requires some extra spending money, so I did go to work. I had a new part-time job at Emily’s Beach Barn, a small clothing and bathing suit shop just 5 minutes from the beach. I have to say I was the youngest employee there. My boss (still going strong at 74) jokingly told customers that I was only hired because I significantly lowered the average age of the staff. This was not always a negative, though, because I learned so many unexpected things this summer. For example, I now how to get a grass stain off of clothing and I know how to make stuffed zucchini. This is what the daily conversation consisted of at work. So, not only did I ring up hundreds of customers at the register, and empty the fitting room for what seemed like thousands of times a day, I also learned more than I ever would have imagined.

This summer I took my love for my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a new level by interning at JENNMAR, a company that specializes in making ground safety control products for coal mines.  I worked in the marketing department at JENNMAR’s corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania assisting the marketing director and manager with daily tasks and other projects.  JENNMAR has plants and offices in the United States, Canada, South America, China, Australia and most recently Europe.  The company specializes in making roof bolts for both coal mines and hard rock mines and some bolts have been adapted to be used for construction purposes.  In addition to roof bolts JENNMAR also has a variety of company subsidiaries that offer other products for the mining and tunneling industries.  JM Steel produces steel for plates, arches and beams.  JENNCHEM produces pump-able cribs to stabilize mine roofs and J-LOK produces the resins pumped into the cribs for stabilization purposes.  The marketing department at JENNMAR is very small so I took on a lot of administrative duties of handling advertising invoices as well as the advertising budget.  I also helped with company presentations and pamphlets that highlighted all the products and sent to salesman around the world.  I was also given the responsibility of organizing all the promotional products for salesmen and customers so I was always mailing JENNMAR stuff around the world.  The LONGWALL Coal Trade Show was also in Pittsburgh in the of summer so I helped set up and man the JENNMAR booth for the event as well as organize cocktail hours and dinners for the customers.  All in all I learned a lot about the coal mining industry and its importance around the world.  I got to meet a lot of people from around the world since the company relies heavily on its international clientele and I also learned what it takes to work in an internal marketing department.  It was a great experience and I am looking forward to taking what I have learned working for an international industrial company and bringing it to the business section of The Observer this year!

New Catholic Issues Editor Alex Deriso spent the summer learning that life after college won’t be as sweet.

This summer, I worked at a Hedge Fund in New York City. I was able to learn many of the ins-and-outs of the Wall Street game, which will help me in the future when I plan on embezzling from my company. The Wall Street life is a tough one, filled with 11 hour days, tons of reading, even more yelling, free lunch, crying, but especially, free lunch. We received lunch from many gourmet places, such as Carnegie Deli, Ray’s Pizza, and some organic place that only the chicks ordered from. My internship also helped me with my memory skills. This came in especially handy when I was ordered to go get the real employees breakfast and coffee. Never once did I have to write down an order, and thats something I proudly hang my hat on. Overall, it was a grueling summer, but hopefully, this will pay off in the future, when I get a job at Goldman Sachs, and am promptly fired after 2 weeks for incompetence.

Andy Rota

NOVA's office at the WGBH studios in Brighton

I continued my internship at WGBH with NOVA Online that I had begun last January.  I worked with some amazing people, including David Levin who produces many of the NOVA Podcasts and NOVA Minutes on the radio!  I was able to work on a variety of projects at NOVA with both technical and editorial aspects.  I was involved in research for the Inside NOVA blog, worked a little on the NOVA online feature, Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers, checked over transcripts of episodes for the website, wrote several PHP scripts to analyze and present data from Google Analytics, and wrote some code for a ‘coming soon’ interactive at the NOVA website.  Working at NOVA was an awesome experience and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to be even a small part of the longest-running, highest-rated, and most-watched science television series of all time!

Also this summer, I began a new job working at Charles River Canoe and Kayak as a Skyline and Boston Harbor Kayak Tour Guide!  As some of you know, I absolutely love kayaking!  Working as a guide has been an opportunity to share that love with others.  And the community at Charles River Canoe and Kayak is awesome – I get to meet, learn from, and work with some of the world’s best paddlers.  And what better job than getting out to paddle on the beautiful Boston Harbor or enjoy a spectacular view of Boston’s skyline on the Charles River!

There’s been more too, including continuing research work with Dr. Jin in BC’s Department of Communication, several web development clients, consulting for a few start-up companies, and preparing to apply for grad school!  And, of course, I’ve been developing some soon-to-be-announced features for The Observer website!

Oh and if you’re an incoming freshman at BC and you’re wondering how you might find some pretty sweet internships (i.e., National Review, PBS, GOP, Dana Farber, and more), make great friends, get involved on campus, and contribute to an award winning college newspaper, consider joining The Observer at Boston College!

Dear Class of 2015,

Do you want to continue working on a newspaper like you did in high school?

Are you interested in pursuing journalism as a career?

Are you looking to try something new at Boston College and meet some great people in the process?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” join The Observer at Boston College! We are an independent campus paper that is looking for incoming freshmen who are interested in journalism, writing, politics, photography, web design, layout, and film. This fall, we will have staff positions available in news, opinions, business, Catholic issues, sports, photography, layout, web development, and video!

If you are interested, fill out the form below!

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