Slusher: Striving for clarity in a high school controversy

Eventually, there will be many lessons for students, parents and even society at large out of a controversy at Barrington High School involving a tweeted picture that some people have labeled as racist. Immediately, there are issues news organizations and the people who follow them must take into account.

One involves the decisions and policies to follow when a controversial story is unfolding. Another involves how those decisions and policies are affected when the key players are minor students in high school.

At issue here is a selfie by eight girls apparently taken at a party. The girls, all white, are smiling and mugging for the camera, and several are making a gesture with their arms that, with the added connection of a phrase in the caption, some people are identifying with a hate group.

In the Wild West world of social media, of course, there are few, if any, filters or controls. That's what enabled the girls to post their picture in the first place. It further enables others to interpret the picture any way they want and to publicly characterize the situation according to their own biases.

Thus it is that many posts echo the sentiment of a particular tweet that, with an air of disgust, declares of the girls, "their school says they did nothing wrong." Setting aside for a moment the issue of how far schools should go to identify, interpret and police the social behaviors of people at private parties, that sentiment is flatly and demonstrably incorrect, as at least two stories in the Daily Herald and others in other publications have made clear. School officials are still investigating the controversy. They have yet to make any statement on whether they consider the picture "wrong" or on the degree to which it reflects badly on the district.

Therein lies the difficulty for responsible news coverage. When a controversy like this blows up, people can't wait to express themselves - especially if the issue is something as important as assuring that racism is not tolerated. But reasonable evaluations of everyone - the girls, school officials, social policies - depend vitally on the results of fact finding that takes time. When it involves minors, the fact finding and releases about it must also be sensitive, to respect privacy, minimize embarrassment and avoid subjecting adolescents to a public sensation they are ill-equipped to navigate.

Thoughts like these are driving Daily Herald editors' decisions about our coverage. In certain circumstances, one might argue that publishing the picture in question is important so people can draw their own conclusions, but we are resisting that, preferring to respect the privacy and age of the students amid the substantial ambiguity of just what they intended. Our ultimate goal in any situation like this is to improve clarity. At this point, in this story involving the delicate sensitivities of young people and some of the most fundamental attitudes of society, we aim to tread carefully and thoughtfully.

Eventually, there will be many lessons from this event, and we expect to provide the reporting and the environment to foster them. In the meantime, we're also committed to assuring that they are not distorted beyond recognition even before they can be considered.

Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is a deputy managing editor at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on Twitter at @JimSlusher.