THE LEADER STAFF
On the morning of Monday, Oct. 23, The Leader was tagged in a post by Michael Williams, on his personal Instagram account, @socdemmike.
Williams is a Staff Writer at The Leader.
Williams submitted an opinion article about the Israel/Palestine conflict. Several issues followed his submission of his article.
The article was shared with several editors outside of the opinion section, including EJ Jacobs, our Life & Arts Editor.
It is especially concerning that the decision was made to share the piece with Jacobs without giving her prior knowledge of the article’s content — as the president of Hillel, it is public knowledge that she is of Jewish faith.
Jacobs was also the first editor to see the article.
None of the editors were informed of the subject matter before the piece was sent in.
This is despite the fact that Marissa Burr, our Opinion Editor, reached out earlier in the week to know if Williams would be contributing to the section since she’d heard nothing from him prior.
Abigail Miller, our Managing Editor, and the other section editors began to edit the piece after it was shared with the editorial staff.
The editors felt that the piece was not well-researched, and did not offer an informative look into the Israel/Palestine conflict, even going so far as to include objectively untrue information.
Williams stated that, “To understand this conflict, you have to go back to the 1947 UN Resolution 81. This resolution gave Israelis and Palestinians a two state solution, which had seemed to work up until the war of 1967.” This is not true, as Palestine didn’t accept the resolution and immediately broke out into a civil war. While that war concluded after about a year, skirmishes continued to be fought along the border for years, and a lasting feeling of animosity remained. There wasn’t lasting peace in the region from ‘47 – ‘67.
Among the editors, it was decided that a more informational news piece should be published in The Leader before an opinionated article was released.
Our audience is composed primarily of students, many of whom may not have a solid understanding of the complexity of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Currently, Jacobs and News Editor, Dan Quagliana, had already begun writing a news piece prior to this incident detailing the Israel/Palestine conflict, including historical context and interviews.
Because of our student readership and desire to put out a factual news piece prior to publishing opinion, we ultimately decided it would be best to not publish Williams’ piece.
The Leader believes that with heavy, emotional topics such as the Israel/Palestine conflict, it is important to avoid further traumatization of Jewish and Palestinian students on campus as well as those sensitive to the situation.
The Leader places great importance on serving as an accurate source of information.
Miller informed Williams of The Leader’s thoughts on the piece via email with kindness and professionalism. The section editors as well as Chloe Kowalyk, the Editor in Chief, were cc’d on the email to provide support for both bodies.
Miller’s email to Williams was sent on Oct. 14, and reads, in full:
“Unfortunately, we are unable to publish your article on the Israel/Palestine conflict in this upcoming issue. This was decided for several reasons, including the fact that, by the time the article would be published, things may change within the situation and we may not have enough time to accordingly modify the article if these changes occur close to the print date on Tuesday [10/17]. We also want to ensure that readers who are not well-educated on the situation at hand can become so in News articles, instead of Opinion ones. We don’t publish Opinion pieces on topics such as this without having some deeply-researched News articles educating our readership about them first, so that the readers are able to understand the full context of the situation and more deeply comprehend any Opinion piece that is written about the topic. The Life & Arts Editor, EJ Jacobs, and the News Editor, Dan Quagliana, have been discussing ways that we can write about the topic in the News section that would educate the student body on this situation without exposing the Jewish students on this campus to further traumatization. This is a conversation that is ongoing and, since the editors and I were unaware that you would be writing this article for your column about the Israel/Palestine situation, I did not have the knowledge to let you know of this ahead of time, before you submitted it. We are very grateful to have you as a member of this team, and I deeply apologize that we are not able to include your article in the upcoming Issue. We eagerly anticipate your article for the next issue, as it is clear that your talent and dedication to this newspaper have played a role in developing the Opinion and News sections. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I appreciate all of your hard work.”
Williams responded with an email back stating that he was “disappointed, to say the least” and that he wishes he “could’ve been notified that there were discussions and had input on this decision.”
The bulk of Miller’s response back reads as follows:
“I never want you to feel like we see you as anything other than a worthwhile and appreciated member of this team, and it breaks my heart that you felt just that. I can completely understand why you’re upset that you were not included in the discussions regarding the conflict. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that you’d be writing about the topic, and as such, we weren’t aware that it would be necessary to include you in the discussion because we did not think that it would apply to you if you weren’t writing an article about it. I think that the best way that we can move forward from the current situation is if there is a direct line of communication open between you and Marissa, and myself when needed. If you let her know your article topics ahead of time, she can make sure that they will be edited and published in the paper or, at the very least, published online within the website (which actually receives more views than the physical copy). I value the work that you do for this paper dearly, and it is important to me that we are able to move forward from this situation with transparency and knowledge of how to handle any similar instances that might arise. Thank you so much for hearing me out.”
Williams responded to Miller seemingly understandingly at first, asking if his article could be published after the news pieces are. Miller responded the next day, with the following email, again in full:
“I apologize again for another late response! That would honestly be something that we would have to discuss in the future, when the other articles regarding the conflict are written, because I don’t know exactly what will be detailed in them or how the whole thing will play out yet. Now that I know that you’re interested in the topic and that you’ve written a piece about it already, I’ll make sure to keep you updated. That being said, it may be worth revisiting the article that you wrote after the News articles are written for the next issue, considering the potential for changes because the situation is rapidly changing and evolving every day. I would be open to going over the article with you a bit closer to when we have the News articles written for the next issue (or when we actually figure out a concrete plan for that) so that we make sure that the situation is detailed as comprehensively as possible, considering its complexity. In any event, I’ll keep you updated of any plan that we end up making to tackle the issue.”
The response Williams made urged Miller to keep him updated. Williams then insinuated that we did not publish his article because of its contents and, to quote him, “That would be illegal.” This is factually incorrect.
It states in The Leader’s Constitution that, “Writers who are interested in becoming a full-time Staff Writer for The Leader must adhere to the following [principles, which include]: will allow their work to be subject to editing [and] must understand that The Leader has the right of first refusal for all of the writer’s intended print material.”
In addition, The Leader is protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution with freedom of the press to publish or withhold any articles which are submitted to us.
He ended his email by stating that he looks forward to working with Miller to make sure the article is published in a future print issue.
Miller, along with every other member of The Leader, never informed Williams that his article would not be published. She instead told him that the article would have to be published within a different print issue, and may need to be slightly edited in order to ensure that the students on this campus are not retraumatized considering the intensity of the violence being inflicted in Gaza.
On the morning of Oct. 23, prior to Williams’ post, Kowalyk sent the following message to Williams:
“I just wanted to reach out regarding your opinion piece about the Israel/Palestine conflict. It is important to remember that The Leader, as a member of the Associated Collegiate Press, has the freedom to choose what to publish. We hold the rights to publish as we choose, and oftentimes cannot publish every single piece that is sent into us. We often need to make decisions where we may not publish a piece that is not well-researched, is missing interviews, is weak content-wise, is not relevant to SUNY Fredonia or its students, does not meet the word count minimum, etc. There are many reasons for us to publish a piece.
Regarding your piece specifically, there are various issues we need to address. Our editors felt that the piece was not well-researched and was too emotionally charged, rather than a thoughtful critique regarding the conflict and surrounding politics. With our readership being primarily students, many of our readers are not heavily educated or informed about the conflict. It is our duty to inform them, and we cannot let their first impression of the situation be an opinion piece. Our news and life and arts editors are currently creating a student guide to the Israel/Palestine conflict, which will inform our readership and break down the issue. In addition, the piece was sent to the incorrect editors. All opinion pieces should be shared with Marissa Burr (our opinion editor), who will then inform the other editors, as well as myself and Abbie. The piece should not have been shared with EJ Jacobs, who is not the correct editor for the section and is Jewish. In addition, attempting to intimidate Abbie by telling her our actions are “illegal” is not okay and outwardly incorrect. Again, The Leader holds every right to choose what to publish, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the piece is about the Israel/Palestine conflict, and everything to do with article quality and interactions with editors.”
As a student-run organization, The Leader’s primary focus is, and always has been, to educate the student body while guaranteeing that every student is not negatively impacted by the content we publish. Our main purpose for not publishing Williams’ article in our fourth print issue was to protect the well-being of the students affected by the Israel/Palestine conflict, not to silence Williams’ opinion on the matter.
Williams’ post spreads misinformation about The Leader and attempts to silence and cause uproar around one of the few sources of student journalism in the Fredonia/Dunkirk area.