EXECUTIVE ORDER
TO: Student Body
Student Organizational leaders
Student Government officials
University administration, faculty, and staff
FROM: Joe Goldberg, Student Body President
Joyce Medina, Student Body Vice-President
Lindsay Cosimi, Student Body Treasurer
Diane Kassim, Student Senate President
John Boyles, Student Senate President Pro-tempore
SUBJECT: Alligator Advertising
DATE: September 20, 2005
Recent editorial choices by the Independent Florida Alligator have tarnished the strong values of diversity that are the anchor of our University community. Their disregard for student opinion and common journalistic standards have distracted from our community’s efforts to move forward with a unified voice in building a stronger, more balanced Gator Nation. Even under the pressure of thousands of students, along with public support from the University President and Administration, their editors have ignored our student body’s call for a formal editorial apology that recognizes their poor choices in publishing such an ignorant cartoon.
Our campus is built on foundations of tradition, diversity, and community. We have every right to hold media entities that report on our student body, especially publications with disregard for these core foundations, to the highest expectations of journalistic integrity, and we will. Today I met with several student leaders, and we shared together the reactions and perspectives of several diverse groups of students on our campus. Their voice, upset by what many have called “routine” ignorance at the Alligator, encouraged me to pull our student body together in speaking a clear message to this newspaper.
Effective today September 20, 2005, I have pulled all advertising dollars from the Student Government Administrative budget and all Student Government executive agencies from being used to purchase advertising space in the Independent Florida Alligator. I do not believe the paper and its editorial board factually or ethically represent our student body, and their recent editorials show little intent for change. I encourage other student groups who may be considering advertising to seek other alternatives and join us in fighting those whose choice of words do little to develop, but rather destroy, our University community and each of our individual’s sense of identity, pride, and culture.
Additionally, I urge community businesses to take a stand on this issue and join their student patrons in holding the Independent Florida Alligator to a higher standard. I encourage these businesses to also remove their advertising as a measure of showing they do not support publications that intentionally tear down the framework of diversity that enriches the college experience for us all.
Finally, I urge the Alligator to recognize the sensitive balance that exists when we discuss the freedom of the press. The Editors of the Alligator have an obligation to report fairly, with caution and consideration, on matters that become even more sensitive when translated from society to campus. Respect for diversity, and moreover respect for our entire student body, the papers’ readers, should be paramount to all other editorial decisions by a campus paper. I ask them to respond to us with a formal editorial apology immediately.