In Leapfrog 1.4, published October 18th, 2024, I placed a news article I wrote titled “SJP holds walkout for Palestine,” on page 8 that was completely wrong about the overwhelming majority of the facts.
Here’s how that happened, and what I’m doing to prevent something like that from happening again in the future.
There are two main things that led to the inaccuracies: first, I was rushing:
The article in question, and many of the other articles, were written in a few hours the day of printing and release. Inaccuracies aside, that’s not a sustainable way to run a paper. Rushing to make the issue results in shoddy reporting, and the news doesn’t get out any faster: the real news still comes out an issue later because it was wrong in the issue I rushed to make.
Second, and more importantly, I assumed that what I already knew was correct:
I knew of the significance of poppies in the UK, and assumed that’s the symbolism that was being employed here. In fact, poppies have entirely different symbolism in Palestine. And moreover, the UK’s poppy symbol has been controversial among British Muslims because it can be seen as a symbol of Western imperialism. That fact alone should have given me pause and prompted me to look more into it.
In essence, I misreported the facts in this story such that the significance of the poppy in Palestinian culture was overwritten by its significance in Britain: one of the chief architects of Palestine’s present occupation and genocide.
That is an act of colonialism—albeit inadvertent—and for that I am deeply sorry.
Additionally, I cited YikYak as a source of student opinion on the walkout. My intention in doing this was constructive, but YikYak’s anonymous nature means that the opinions shared there cannot be weighed and considered in the context of the lived experiences of the people who have them. In this particular case, an opinion on the walkout is worth uplifting if its coming from a BIPOC student, and worth very little if its coming from someone who was not at the walkout. In this, I failed to live up to the first of Leapfrog’s ethics guidelines: platforming BIPOC voices, and I will do better in the future.
While I believe those are the most pressing issues with the article, it is also worth noting that the role SJP played in organizing the walkout was overstated in the article, and it was, in fact, primarily the effort of Theoderic Strider, F23.
For that, I apologize to both Theoderic and Hampshire College SJP.
Going forward (starting with this issue), everything Leapfrog publishes—news, editorials, opinions, columns, comics, crosswords, etc.—will be reviewed by at least three people who were not involved in writing the article, in order to check for accuracy, adherence to Leapfrog’s ethics guidelines, as well as personal bias. Additionally, each page will be checked for any unfortunate juxtapositions between content. A log of who signed off on each piece of content, as well as each page, for every issue will be made available online under “Publishing Info” at hampshireleapfrog.org/archive.
This system of content review is not to shift responsibility from me: I am the editor-in-chief, and ultimately, the duty to uphold the ethical guidelines of the paper rests with me. But the content review will help the paper’s staff, myself included, check our biases.
I thank those who brought these issues to my attention and took the time, energy, and emotional effort to help me understand. It is not easy to give good criticism, to call people in, rather than out, and that is not lost on me.
Thank you for reading Leapfrog, and trusting that it is worth the effort to push it to improve.
REVIEWED BY: Malfoy Kimmel, Kenzie Doherty, Ryan Nivus
