Why we covered the 'Let's Talk' forum: A lesson on free speech and censorship

The Daily Helmsman covered the events of the "Let's Talk" conversation March 19 in our issue the next day. We have received emails, including one sent to all students in attendance at the event, questioning our right to publish this article.

Before the event began, Sally Parish, University of Memphis associate dean of Student Leadership and Involvement, stated that it was an off-the-record conversation, and nothing said in the room would appear in media. 

This was a blanket statement made by Parish to a crowd and does not guarantee any deal for media not to cover the event. An off-the-record conversation must be agreed upon by both parties, which was not the case. Moreover, a public forum, which is exactly what this conversation was, is open to the public and cannot be closed from media ever.

The attendees were given a false sense of privacy based on a misunderstanding from administration. Any public meeting is never private; that is the case everywhere. Speaking to a room of 521 people, which was the announced attendance at "Let's Talk," will hardly ever grant privacy. Everyone should be aware of this for the future.

Portions of the conversation were also posted on social media (Twitter and Snapchat). If our student newspaper is mandated to not publish anything, that should be the same for all students.

We have the utmost respect for our university administration, but sometimes we are on different sides of campus issues. This is one of those cases.

That is the legality of the situation — now for the ethical implications. I have received numerous emails about our ethics in writing the story. 

Let me rewind to last semester. U of M administration hosted a public forum Oct. 18, 2017, about the sexual assault climate on campus. This newspaper covered that event by printing an exact, verbatim, word-for-word transcript of every single sentence spoken at that event. 

An event where brave sexual assault survivors came forward about their experiences was not censored by this newspaper because we thought the whole campus needed to know what their university's administration was doing to fix the issues discussed. It is the same now.

If we can cover that event, where the content was just as personal as the "Let's Talk" forum, this should be no different, no matter what impression was given to audience members. Also in the "Let's Talk" article, we did not include personal details said with the intent to not be too personal. 

Covering this event does not hinder the important discussion that took place at this forum, in fact, it continues dialogue more than ignoring this issue would do. We feel that ignoring this conversation would be the more unethical thing to do.

We have never, in the time that I have been around this newspaper, protected any student organization, Greek life or otherwise, when a problem involving them arises. We have heard from the president of one organization involved requesting that we take down our story, which we will not do. This is presumably because they want their organization's name detached from this event. The content of the article was not incorrect, so a retraction is unnecessary. 

It is our job as an independent student newspaper to continue dialogue and to inform students about what is going on without censorship from Student Leadership and Involvement or any other administrative department (many past United States Supreme Court cases will back me up). We will continue to do our job.