Talk:The Pitt News

First Amendment
We definitely need some information about Pitt News' role in college journalism as a defender of the First Amendment. There's the Liquor Control Board thing, the time the paper published an article that Duquesne would not let its student paper run, and there's the time that we caught the Pitt Police filing a false police report after an officer stole ... well my notes. (I'm not sure I should be the one to add it, but it is an important part of the paper's role on campus. --Chris Griswold 12:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Alumni - notability and lack of references
Most of the recent additions to these sections are simply not notable. Ideally, every one of these people should have an article on Wikipedia, or at least be notable enough to have one. Notability guidelines for Wikipedia ask, among other things, that the person is the subject of one or more non-trivial works. That means no press releases, for instance.

Simply being an intern, staff writer, copy editor at a newspaper; being editor of a relatively small newspaper; assisting a golfer; working at a library; teaching at a school in South Korea; working for NOW+ is not enough to justify inclusion. The award-winners, however, possibly could have their own section. Not sure collegiate awards satisfy notability, but a list of alumni who have won writing awards might be appropriate to this article.

Regardless, everything needs a citation. This article has been tagged as being unreferenced since July, and so unreferenced material should be removed, rather than added. --Superburgh 00:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I added citations for the five notable alumni previously listed, and I removed some excess information about Joe Zeff. Were we to remove Zeff and Michael Clinton, since neither has a Wikipedia article, that would leave 3 people, and then I don't think the Notable Alumni section is merited.  But we could write a brief paragraph about the 3, and prose might be better anyway.  Thoughts? I might volunteer to do this now. --Blicarea (talk) 07:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Just because they don't have their own Wikipedia articles, does not mean they have to be eliminated from a list of notable alumni. Plenty of notable people do not yet have a Wikipedia article. BTW, good job on upgrading The Pitt News article. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! And thanks for inviting me to join the WikiProject! --Blicarea (talk) 22:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

In the early 1990s, the Pitt News published the name of a rape victim without her permission.
I don't have any source, other than to say that I read the actual article, and then I read the paper's apologies in later issues. Of course my memory does not meet wikipedia's standards, but if anyone comes across anything, please post it here. I imagine that at some time, some other editors who come across this talk page may remember the incident, and if they could narrow it down to a more specific time period, perhaps the Pitt News archives could be searched for the issues where the apologies took place. I am not asking anyone to take my word blindly - I understand that verification is needed. 54mmkds (talk) 01:53, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Here's a source. You need to use a PDF reader to read it. It's from the Duquesne Duke, which is the official student newspaper of Duquesne University, which is in Pittsburgh. It's dated October 1, 1992. The article is called, "The Pitt News criticized over sexual assault story." It says:

"The Pitt News, the University of Pittsburgh newspaper, "mistakenly" published the name of an alleged sexual assault victim."

It quotes the Pitt News's editor as saying that it was a "mistake," and that "no one was specifically responsible."

It also says the original article, which named the victim, was published on September 17.

Wikipedia won't let me post the link, so I have changed it. Remove "dot" and replace it with a period. Also remove the spaces.

https://www.google dot com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwju8fzN07T1AhXopnIEHXlzCF8QFnoECAMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigital.library.duq.edu%2Fdigital%2Fapi%2Fcollection%2Fcdm-duke%2Fid%2F22620%2Fdownload&usg=AOvVaw11ax5WZKouRdVHmhnuVnwt

54mmkds (talk) 21:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I propose the following text be added to the article:

On September 17, 1992, the Pitt News published the name of a sexual assault victim. Four days later, the Pitt News apologized for printing the victim's name. Pitt News editor in chief Jason Hillman said, "It was a mistake... no one was specifically responsible." Julie Sabol, the Pitt News employee who wrote the article, resigned her position as news editor, and said, "I left because of ideological differences with the editor in chief... The name of the victim was not put in the paper intentionally or with any malicious will."

54mmkds (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Here's the original Pitt News article: https://documenting.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735066025291/viewer#page/1/mode/2up

54mmkds (talk) 22:08, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I just added my proposed text to the article. 54mmkds (talk) 00:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)