We’ve seen an increasing number of sources on campus requesting to conduct interviews via email, and in the interest of providing our readers with the most accurate version of the truth, The Oracle will no longer conduct interviews via email, with only extraordinary circumstances as exceptions to the rule.
We cannot provide the transparency and accountability we wish to if the information we provide you with is first vetted and filtered through layers of spokespeople, or answered by a source at the other end of a computer with time to type, delete and retype a response.
The Oracle has until now used email interviews as a last resort, but the increasing number of sources demanding all questions be emailed poses a difficult situation for us.
In the interest of telling fair and balanced stories, we hope to always provide our readers with as many different viewpoints as possible.
But as a newspaper, is it our job to provide readers with the truth, directly from the source — not from the strategically coordinated voices of public relations staff or prescreened e-mail answers.
We don’t think these responses provide our readers with the unvarnished truth, and we will no longer include them in our articles at the expense of compromising the integrity of the information we provide. University departments do not have one, centralized voice, but rather are made up of a multitude of diverse perspectives.
We believe by adopting this policy, we can come closer to presenting you with a picture as close to the actual truth as we can.
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