in college we're suppose to learn how to act all grown up but still pretending to be a kid. that's the beauty of college, you get the best of both worlds. well in the last week i learned pretty damn quit what it's going to be like in the newspaper world.
this week in the observer we run a story on one of the candidates that was running for our student body government aka Board of Directors (BOD) president. Ash Gilmore (who the story is about) was charged with second degree murder for his involvement in the accidental shooting of his roommate when he went to Washington State. you can read the whole story online at our website. from the very beginning ash was being a complete ass about the whole thing. he was freakening out, he threatened us with his lawyers. his dad so much has called the vp of student affairs on us. and not only were we getting heat from ash and his goonies, but we were getting heat from current BOD members about why we were running the story. Myself, the reporter who wrote the story and our advisor were each approached by three different members of the BOD. and all my reasons i told them i wrote in this week's observance which can be located online too. well after the whole fuss about us runing the story i thought all i had to deal with was maybe a phone call or a visit from ash's lawyers. i was informed that they were going to be in ellensburg wed morning. which scared me shitless non the less.
well to my surprise i get a phone call wed morning from one of my staff members telling me that he just got an anonymous phone call from a women saying that Gilmore stole all the newspapers on campus and that they were in his garage. you could have imagined that woke me up pretty dang quit. the news of the stolen newspapers filtered down through the editing staff. I WAS PISSED!! i still am. well we got another phone call informing us that the papers were in ash's house, we got the address and sent down a photog and two reporters to take pictures of the papers in his garage for the police. a series of other events happened through out the day. a visit from campus police, the physical handing out of the few papers we did have of the observer, rumors floating around of getting me and Lois (our advisor) fired, couple of "non confrontational" encounters with Gilmore...you know the normal everyday stuff.
i never would have thought he would actually do something like this. I mean it was an accident right. so why the hell was he so freaked out about the story and why did he not want people to know about his past if he had nothing to hide. i understood why he was concerned about the story. but he should have known that if he wanted to be a public figure this kind of shit would follow him around. i mean come on! how much of a big deal was it when Bush was running for prez and the media coverage he got because of his bad grades in college and him smoking pot? and i'm pretty sure that most college students are guilty of that. This was murder! if it had been any other candidate we would have run the story the same.
at the end of the day, we contacted the police, talked to a lawyer, got our papers reprinted and legal action will be taken. I also found out today that stealing college newspapers (even tho they are free) is a felony. through out this whole ordeal all i could think about was dont screw up Rachel. Your ass is on the line. This is no game, something bad could happen. I didnt realize how much i grew up in the last eight hours. I am still going through something that most professional journalist fear and have not and probably never will experience. i knew being editor in chief was going to be hard and that i had to deal with whatever came my way. but i never thought it would be something of this magnitude. i mean holy shit! i could possibly be responsible for sending a fellow student to jail. at first i felt for him, but after pulling something like this..it's unforgivable. what he did was not only legally wrong, but morally and ethically wrong. he was prohibiting students to vote without the full knowelge of the situation. he was not going to allow students to come to their own informed conclusion about him and weather or not they want someone like Gilmore to be their next president. as a journalist, i did what i was suppose to do. gathered information, presented the truth and reported it to the people. i stand by my decision of running the story. i do not regret a single thing nor will i. no matter the outcome.
p.s. i think everyone should read the story, the follow up story and my opinion online at www.cwu.edu/~observer you guys this is some big shit right here. it would mean a lot to me if you read them, no matter if you agree with me about running the story or not.
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