It’s half past five on Monday evening. “I haven’t got anything done all day”, I grumble to one of my colleagues. She knows the feeling. Some days just seem to fill up with meetings and other obligations, leaving no time for our core business of writing.
Complaints
This Monday was one of those days. First, a student complained about the headline of an article. It was an almost verbatim quote from the text, which the interviewee had read and approved before it was published. No, we won’t be changing it – headlines are determined by the editorial team. And no, they’re not included in the text the interviewee reviews for factual errors before publication. Why not? A headline needs to grab the reader’s attention, so it has to be catchy and compelling. We’re the experts in this area. Besides, the final editor often makes last-minute changes to headlines if they’re too long, too short, unclear or not to the point.
Uncomfortable
Then there was a former student emailing us to request the removal of her photo from the website. She no longer looks like she did four years ago and feels uncomfortable with it being up. I’m sorry to say that we can’t accommodate such requests either. As I’ve explained before, our website serves as an archive. As a rule, we don’t remove any photos or articles from it. If, fifty years from now, a researcher decides to use Observant as a source to study university students in the 2020s, they need to be able to trust that the archive has remained intact.
Surname
Finally, an interviewee had second thoughts about having their surname published in Observant – a condition agreed upon in advance. We responded that quotes must be accompanied by the speakers’ names. We’re extremely sparing in our use of anonymous sources or first names only, and will always explain why someone insisted on not being named. We also never use pseudonyms for interviewees. As the newspaper NRC puts it, “Journalism stands or falls with the reliability and verifiability of information. Naming names is part of that.”