Staff Editorial, Daily Nebraskan 5 hours, 12 minutes ago
(UWIRE) LINCOLN, Neb.—On Monday, for a few tense hours, the Daily Nebraskan was banned from attending football practice.
This ugly reminder of a similar situation we moved past weeks ago first surfaced after we published Monday’s staff editorial on discipline and Husker football.
Our essential goal was to decry what we feel is a lack of sufficient transparency when it comes to Husker football’s handling of disciplinary matters.
We named names, and cited specific cases where we thought the Athletic Department should have done more to keep the public abreast on the way it works to make sure these problems are handled.
We maintain it was our right to make the assertion that we did. As an editorial board and a moderator in a public forum, it is our position that we have a duty to facilitate and promote discussion on matters of public concern.
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This is what we were trying to accomplish; Coach Bo Pelini did not agree.
After seeing the staff editorial, Pelini called our office and berated one of our board members so loudly that he was heard clearly from across the newsroom. There’s no real point in printing the choice phrases he used during that first phone call.
But Pelini informed us the Daily Nebraskan’s relationship with the football program would be severed unless an exhaustive retraction was published on today’s front page. Athletic Department personnel confirmed Pelini’s decision later in the day, and asked that our reporters and photographers not show up at Monday’s practice while politely asking the one writer who did to leave.
It was tough for us not to think of the events of a couple weeks past, when Gov. Dave Heineman’s press officers outrageously threatened to prohibit us from public meetings when we published a story they didn’t find agreeable. But this editorial isn’t designed to beat a dead horse.
We were discouraged by Pelini’s initial reaction. We find it appalling that Pelini originally determined the best method of responding to our calls for increased transparency was childishly trying to keep our sports reporters from doing their jobs.
We demand that not only our sports reporters but any other reporters hold fast to standards of journalistic integrity and excellence in their work, and leave the soapboxing to the opinion section. At first, it seemed that distinction wasn’t getting across.
Then, after Monday’s practice, a much calmer Pelini made a couple return calls to the Daily Nebraskan.
He explained he didn’t think it was responsible of the editorial board to use the names of players who haven’t yet gone through the legal system, or the names of those who went through the system a year ago and seemed to have shaped up since. He stressed he was tough when it came to team discipline, but that sometimes matters had to be dealt with from within.
Therefore, he said, the tone and conclusion of Monday’s editorial was unfounded.
Fair enough, Coach, but we still disagree.
Nevertheless, we appreciate your decision to lift the short-lived media ban and come back to the situation to find a way to settle things peacefully.
In the coming days, one of our football writers will publish an article examining Pelini’s doctrine on team discipline. We hope it’s able to provide an objective look at part of the inner workings of Husker Football, a realm reserved for a few fortunate and highly-talented young athletes.
On Monday, Pelini said he didn’t mind media attention and criticism, as long as it was done fairly.
That’s always our goal.
