Corsair staff members busted for drinking
SMC Members of the editorial staff at Santa Monica College’s newspaper, The Corsair, stumbled over the weekend and now face disciplinary action after they were caught drinking alcohol while attending a journalism conference and competition at Cal State Fullerton.
Officials with SMC and the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC), which sponsored the SoCal Conference, said nine out of the 27 members on SMC’s team were disqualified, precluding them from winning several awards. The college was also put on probation for one year.
Students who were disqualified are expected to meet with SMC’s dean of discipline sometime this week to discuss further punishment.
The use of alcohol and or illegal substances is prohibited at JACC events as well as on the grounds at SMC, regardless of age or justification, meaning even those adults who are of the legal drinking age cannot indulge, SMC and JACC officials said.
Of the 31 teams that participated in the two-day event, SMC’s contingent was the only one with members disqualified for violating the code of conduct.
While details are sketchy, several sources said that members of the SMC team were seen drinking at a bar or restaurant near where the competition was taking place. It is not clear who informed JACC officials about the drinking. Some reported it was members of a rival team.
“All I can tell you is that nine members were disqualified and several awards were stripped away,” said Timi Ross Poeppelman, conference chair. “We could have punished the whole team and sent a letter to their dean, which goes on their permanent record. We could have done a whole bunch of things, but we decided the best thing was to disqualify only those who violated the code of conduct and allow the other members to participate.”
Poeppelman said the disqualified members were honest and open about the drinking and apologized to JACC officials for their actions.
The SoCal conference brings together some of the best community college news teams in the region and pits them against one another in a series of competitions that force them to write stories and take pictures and file them under a strict deadline. Contestants also compete in a mail-in competition, which looks at work from the previous year to see who wrote the best feature or news story, who took the most eye-catching photographs and who produced the most attractive newspaper.
SMC students caught drinking were prevented from participating in the on-the-spot competitions and were not eligible to receive mail-in awards, Poeppelman said.
Still, the SMC team did not leave empty handed. The Corsair took home awards for best news story, online journalism general excellence, best sports feature photo, photo story/essay, online photo, news photo and feature photo.
The disqualifications put a damper on what would otherwise have been a joyous occasion, said Barbara Baird, advisor to the Corsair, who was not present at the conference.
“It’s very bittersweet,” Baird said. “The students do work really hard to put out the best newspaper they can and they are amongst the hardest working students at Santa Monica College. It’s unfortunate that the students did not use good judgment in this incident … Journalists are held to a higher ethical standard, so any time we’re not squeaky clean, it undermines our credibility as a newspaper, and we’ve worked very hard to establish our credibility and to follow professional and ethical standards.
“I feel sad about it and its hard for me to say what effect it will have on the newspaper,” Baird added. “But I think it does undermine our credibility.”
Judith Penchansky, the dean of student services who is in charge of discipline, said Baird was planning to file a formal complaint with her office and that she would be meeting with the students to discuss punishment.
Penchansky said she was planning to use this opportunity as a “teaching moment,” and that the first offense, unless egregious, is usually handled with a warning.
“The rules of conduct are very clear, but yet, we are dealing with a rule that could be considered unusual given that these are community college students,” Penchansky said. “Playing devil’s advocate, you can have a 30-year-old student who may think they are entitled to a drink, and under other circumstances, they would be, but the rules of conduct prevent that.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 8, 2007. Read the original PDF.