Amy Herdy, former CU Independent adviser, and Paul Voakes, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, have differing opinions on a recent publication by the Student Press Law Center concerning Herdy, Voakes and the CUI.
After Herdy’s contract wasn’t renewed in June, she said she contacted the SPLC because she felt the public deserved to know about the strained relations between the CUI staff and the journalism school’s faculty.
“I’m looking for CU to support the student media and for CU to understand what the first amendment means,” Herdy said. “I’m looking for the hostile environment to stop.”
Voakes said he didn’t renew Herdy’s contract for business reasons. Herdy said in the SPLC article, however, that she was let go because of her response to a series of events that caused tension between the CUI staff and the school’s faculty.
She said the tension reached a flashpoint in 2008, when the then Campus Press published an article by Max Karson. The piece was intended to be satirical but ultimately offended many in the Asian community.
After the incident, Herdy said, the friction increased when the dean asked her to give a “heads-up” before controversial publications, according to her 2008 evaluation.
Voakes, however, said the request did not suggest that Herdy should use prior review with the student staff.
“The context was trying to seek a management system that would eliminate the likelihood of another [Karson] debacle…the only time to have the review is from the express request of the students,” Voakes said.
Herdy said she still questions the dean’s motives as he used the word “publisher” in the job description for the position of the new adviser.
“If he has no intention of prior review, then why did he put the word ‘publisher’ in the job description for the new adviser?” she said. “The definition of publisher is someone who has total control and that’s not the case for student media.”
According to the Citizen Law Media Project, a publisher has the knowledge, opportunity and ability to exercise editorial control over the content of its publications.
Voakes said that “publisher” signifies someone who is responsible for the editorial and business aspect of the paper and that does not signify prior review.
Gil Asakawa, the CUI’s new adviser, said he has no intention of using prior review.
“Prior review is not part of my job…I think of myself as an adviser first and publisher, that is part of the business side,” Asakawa said.
Herdy said she is currently receiving unemployment from the state after being found to be terminated without cause and is in the process of filing a lawsuit against CU.
She said she hopes the CUI will gain more support from the administration as well as the opportunity to work in a more forgiving environment.
“Students on campus support them, the administration needs to catch up,” she said. “I’d like to see campus-wide education of the first amendment. [The administration] thinks they have the right to exercise prior restraint and they don’t have the right to edit stories and I’d like to see a supportive environment that if the student journalists make a mistake, they are helped to learn from it and they are not continually blamed for it.”
The CU Independent’s current editor-in-chief, 22-year-old news editorial major Kate Spencer, said that while the relationship between CUI staff and the school’s faculty was tense, the staff is looking ahead at improving relations.
“The environment between the faculty and the staff was pretty strained just because of some past history,” Spencer said. “This year I think it’s off to a much better start. We have new staff and fresh faces and we’ve had good interaction with the faculty overall. We, as a staff, have fairly high hopes of the semester.”
Voakes said he also feels the relations between the staff and the administration are improving.
“I spoke at the staff meeting at the CUI and I was very pleased listening around the room about the instances of so many faculty members encouraging their classes to contribute stories to the CUI…I think this is a really good sign,” he said.
Another way the CUI is looking to improve relations with the school of journalism faculty is by asking them to critique the site, a feature that Herdy once did, Spencer said.
“We have a couple faculty members helping us critique our site, something our past adviser had done, and the dean is helping us find more faculty to critique the site, so we can help build that bridge now for semesters to come,” she said.
The SPLC article contained a quote that Herdy recorded in a private session in which Voakes, unaware that Herdy was recording the conversation, stated that the CUI was dying a slow death.
Voakes said this quote was taken out of context and was in reference to the CUI’s current financial problems and not the publication’s editorial quality.
Asakawa said that while the quote and article upset CUI staff members, it did not upset their focus.
“It has affected the Independent in that it’s been a topic of discussion and there are some things in it that upset some of the students, but it hasn’t affected us as far as the productivity and the level of journalism that we’re putting out there,” he said.
Asakawa, who was hired to help the CUI financially, said the publication has plans to bring in new revenue using e-mail and social media.
Voakes said the CUI staff has responded maturely to Herdy’s termination and the SPLC article.
“I was really impressed with the professionalism of the staff of the CUI,” he said. “I realized that I was making a controversial decision. I think they responded really maturely and professionally. In many respects, Herdy was a good adviser. She raised the editorial quality of the CUI and I don’t think anyone should ever take that away from her.”
While the CUI staff responded professionally, Spencer said they did not take Herdy’s loss lightly.
“Amy’s legacy will be that she taught us all to be fantastic journalists,” Spencer said. “She instilled journalistic integrity that I don’t think we are going to get from another adviser…It was a big loss for the CUI in that she had formed close relationships with many of the staff, she had been a friend, a mentor, and even a mother to some at times…she set us on our way to the future…she is still with us now in her teachings.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Rose Heaphy at Josephine.heaphy@colorado.edu.
