No member of the Observant editorial team would ever put themselves forward for the University Council or Employees’ Council, let alone the Local Consultative Body. A journalist’s job is to hold those in power accountable, and you can’t do that if you’re part of the system. For the same reason, it’s unwise to be close friends with a university administrator. The risk of losing impartiality is simply too great – what if you need to write something critical about them? This is exactly why we teach our students never to interview their friends. A journalist asks tough questions that may not be well received from a friend.
When we attend meetings of the University Council or Local Consultative Body – as we regularly do – we’re there as observers, not participants. We listen and take notes. It’s not our place to join the discussion or ask questions. This isn’t always easy; sometimes we have to grit our teeth, especially when council members fail to ask the right questions or press for proper answers.
Willpower
At times, it takes all our willpower not to jump into the conversation. This happens when council members bring up issues Observant has already investigated and reported on – something that seems to have escaped their notice. One time during a Law Faculty Council meeting, members wondered aloud why the university library in the city centre couldn’t stay open late during exam weeks. We’d already covered the answer: local residents had objected due to noise and disruption at night. In this case, our reporter briefly set aside professional detachment and fired off a quick email to the director, who was then able to clarify the situation on the spot.
Upcoming merger
Or take that time when the Faculty Council of Science and Engineering wanted to know the status of the university’s merger with the hospital. No one in the room had any idea. But just a few weeks earlier, in December 2024, we had published an in-depth article on the topic: we’d interviewed seventy employees from both sides of the river, asking what they thought of the upcoming merger, and detailed its progress (much was still uncertain, but a go/no-go decision was expected by summer 2025). Evidently, the article had passed them by.
This isn’t a plea for us to have a say in these meetings – far from it. It’s on us to deal with this and find ways to reach more employees and students so that Observant can keep them informed. And sometimes, we just have to sit on our hands, no matter how much we want to speak up. So be it.