Nearly 100 newspapers, MSNBC and National Public Radio covered last week's long-awaited release of the final report from the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.
Even though the report was posted on the University's Web site without much fanfare on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 18, several major newspapers reported the committee's findings in their Thursday editions. In many cases, stories appeared on the newspapers' Web sites just hours after the report's release.
The New York Times, the Providence Journal, the New York Sun and the Chronicle of Higher Education all published stories about the report the day after its release. Articles by wire services such as the Associated Press and Bloomberg extended the report's coverage to dozens more media outlets, including the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Web sites of CNN and Fox News.
Michael Chapman, vice president for public affairs and University relations, told The Herald that the media plan for the slavery and justice report differed from the University's normal strategy. Usually when the University issues an important report - for example, a study produced by a Brown professor - the Office of Public Affairs and University Relations sends a detailed press release and a copy of the report to media outlets before the official release date, he said.
But in this case, Chapman said, "We took a different approach because (President Ruth Simmons) felt that the slavery and justice report was really for the Brown community. We did not want to give advance copies to the media. Instead, we wanted to give everybody access to it at the same time."
When the report and its accompanying Web site were completed, Simmons sent a campus-wide e-mail about its release and the Office of Media Relations distributed a media advisory to news organizations to alert them to the report, Chapman said.
Unlike typical press releases, the slavery and justice media advisory was "strictly informational," Chapman said. Instead of summarizing the report, the media advisory included only one paragraph of background about the committee and directed the media to the report's Web site. The media relations Web site also contained a 1,400-word background document about the history of the committee and the structure of its report, along with the text of Simmons' campus-wide e-mail.
Since the report came out late in the day and no advance copies were given to the media, most reporters had few hours to write their stories before they went to press.
"We gave people in the press an impossible assignment," said James Campbell, associate professor of history and the committee's chair, explaining that members of the media had only hours to digest the 106-page report. "Under the circumstances, I thought they did remarkably well," he said.
"Inevitably, the first reports - which are made without benefit of actually having read the report - are going to be somewhat superficial," Campbell said. "One hopes that further coverage and discussion in coming weeks will be more thoughtful and more informed."
Chapman also praised the media coverage. "It was our hope that the media would take the time to read the report and do stories on it. They got the report in the afternoon ... and most of them had time to read through it," he said. "I think the coverage overall was quite fair and balanced and accurate."
Most of the coverage of the slavery and justice report noted the University's acknowledgment of its ties to slavery and focused on the recommendations outlined in the report. Some news articles highlighted what was not in the report - namely, a formal apology and a recommendation for monetary reparations.
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, posted on its Web site Oct. 19 and published in the Oct. 27 print edition, stated that the report "may be more notable for what it doesn't do: It falls short of offering an institutional apology, and while it discusses the issue of reparations at length, it makes no recommendation on whether to offer such payments to the descendants of slaves."
The New York Times reported Oct. 19 that the "committee did not call for outright reparations, an idea that has support among some African-Americans and was a controversial issue at Brown several years ago."
Committee members Campbell and Professor of History Omer Bartov both said they tried to explain the complexity and context of the report in interviews with reporters and encouraged members of the media to read the document.
Campbell said because most reporters were unfamiliar with the committee, he tried to convey the context of the committee's work, explaining that it is intended to begin a dialogue on campus about the University's ties to slavery.
Bartov said even though the University was never considering giving monetary reparations for slavery, he wasn't surprised that many media reports touched on that possibility. "Obviously people wanted to know what our position was on that, because that had always been a major focus of the debate about reparations," Bartov said.
Though most of the national media coverage was in newspapers and on the Internet, the report was also featured by pundit Tucker Carlson on the Oct. 19 edition of his MSNBC show.
At the beginning of the show, Carlson described Brown as "the Ivy League university that is still apologizing for slavery 149 years after the Emancipation Proclamation." During an on-air interview with Campbell, Carlson focused on the committee's recommendation that the University extend need-blind admission to international students and recruit students from Africa and the West Indies, two areas affected by the colonial slave trade.
"I'm more confused at the end of this interview than the beginning. Can you sum it up for me?" Carson asked Campell. "The people you're giving preference to over presumably white American students - the people who are getting preference - are you demonstrating that they individually have been harmed by slavery and Brown University's role in slavery?"
Campbell responded, "Part of what I guess I would ask you to do is read the report. ... If you're a member of an institution, particularly an institution like this one, which exists across time - you know, we are part of a procession that began hundreds of years ago on this campus and will continue hundreds of years after - part of what it is to be a member of an institution like this is to accept responsibility to those who came before and those who came after. That's a deeply conservative idea."
"With all due respect, I think you're making a good faith effort to explain it. I must be getting dumber. I really don't understand," Carlson said to end the segment.
Several newspapers also dedicated space on their editorial pages to the slavery and justice report. In an Oct. 23 editorial, the Times wrote that the report "should dispel any lingering smugness among Northerners that slavery was essentially a Southern problem" and praised the University for illuminating a history that, quoting from the report itself, "had been largely erased from the collective memory of our university and state."
The New York Sun also praised the committee's work in an Oct. 19 editorial, describing the work as "compelling, fascinating, and educational reading." The Sun said the report is "in the best tradition of Moses Brown," the abolitionist brother of University treasurer and slaveholder John Brown, "which those who did such a fine job of researching it will know is high praise indeed."
Not all editorials about the report were so favorable. The Daily Bruin, the student newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles, called the report "a recent example of backward logic" and said Brown should instead "focus on the problems of today rather than getting bogged down on the injustices of the past."
"For Brown to pursue reparations after it has clearly shown its commitment to moving forward by taking a black president is unnecessary," the Daily Bruin's editorial argued.
