2008 Woodie Awards
Decision to publish information justifiable
Issue date: 12/2/04 Section: Editorial
- Page 1 of 1
In this issue of The Echo, specifically in the chancellor search committee article, a decision was made to publish information obtained from an e-mail that was unintentionally sent to an Echo staff member.
The information obtained was that John Friedl is a nominee for the chancellor of UTC.
While the sender of this e-mail did not intend for the staff member to read the information, we feel that the information was important enough to be published despite the fact it was not given to us intentionally by the source.
It is our opinion that the chancellor search committee made a mistake when it decided to conduct the majority of their search in secrecy. This is especially true because of the recent history of University of Tennessee system searches that have yielded less than ethical leaders.
Additionally, the fact that the nominee is one of UTC's own administrators makes the information newsworthy and important for the UTC community to know. The fact that UTC is a public university and is funded largely by public funding, makes it each person's right to know who the potential leaders of the university are.
We believe that the campus community should know what is being discussed behind the scenes during the decision-making process of choosing the next chancellor.
If the committee would make the choice of not conducting the nomination process in secret, then they would no longer have to worry about the effect of people outside the committee finding out about specific nominees.
The information obtained was that John Friedl is a nominee for the chancellor of UTC.
While the sender of this e-mail did not intend for the staff member to read the information, we feel that the information was important enough to be published despite the fact it was not given to us intentionally by the source.
It is our opinion that the chancellor search committee made a mistake when it decided to conduct the majority of their search in secrecy. This is especially true because of the recent history of University of Tennessee system searches that have yielded less than ethical leaders.
Additionally, the fact that the nominee is one of UTC's own administrators makes the information newsworthy and important for the UTC community to know. The fact that UTC is a public university and is funded largely by public funding, makes it each person's right to know who the potential leaders of the university are.
We believe that the campus community should know what is being discussed behind the scenes during the decision-making process of choosing the next chancellor.
If the committee would make the choice of not conducting the nomination process in secret, then they would no longer have to worry about the effect of people outside the committee finding out about specific nominees.
