The News’ report last week on the early stages of Student Council elections included lapses in accuracy and journalistic practices for which we apologize to the Council and to the community.

We wrongly asserted that Christian Duffy has been on the Council since his freshman year. The facts on that score are as President Rosen states in his letter to the left. In the lead paragraph of our story, moreover, we printed a claim by an anonymous source that certain individuals had been “circled” in the first stages of the selection of candidates for the February elections. It is the practice of this paper (and others) to verify statements by anonymous sources by speaking to a second source who can confirm the facts. This we did not do in the Council election article, and we deeply regret the error. The fact that our source has since confirmed the original statement on which our reporting was based does not mitigate our bad judgment in printing these claims as facts. Finally, a point that President Rosen does not make in his letter but that we feel should be addressed: Throughout last week’s story, the reporter adopted an omniscient voice that made it all too easy for him to forget his obligation to our readers to refer throughout the article to who was making what claims. The editors are reminded once again of the care we must take in gathering and editing stories.

President Rosen’s letter contains an appeal to The News to respect election practices that have been in place for years and a suggestion of potential “irreparable damage to this year’s election.” This is not the place to debate him on those points. We admire much of what he has accomplished as the leader of this year’s Council, and we certainly respect his defense of the Council’s practices in his letter. We urge our readers to have the same critical eye that the Student Council has brought to this story to call our attention our mistakes.

As far as the story’s printability goes, The News believes that the community might expect us to print such information when it comes our way. Many newspapers print leaked information, and this information is a valuable journalistic tool. While we do acknowledge the position of the Student Council and understand their perspective, it is in fact their perspective. The purpose of the article was not to give any candidate an unfair advantage any more so than the class has already given him or her by circling their names in the preliminary rounds. Rather, the purpose of the article was to draw more attention to the rising 6th form elections and in tandem with our editorial, “Student Council: How About a Little Respect?” perhaps make their presence amongst campus more powerful. Unfortunately this became clouded in the errors of the article.