College editor defends running uncensored streaker photos

WNCT.com | The East Carolinian
On Tuesday, the student newspaper at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. ran photos of the streaker who ran across the field in the middle of a halftime military appreciation ceremony at last Saturday’s ECU-University of Southern Mississippi game. (“It was something that I wanted to do before I died,” the 21-year-old man told the student paper.) Editor Caitlin Hale says she and colleagues ran the photos “because we felt that our audience, which is primarily the ECU student body, should have access to unedited and factual photos of the streaking incident.” She added that they “were not meant to be seen as sexually suggestive or insulting.” The school administration quickly condemned the journalists’ editorial judgment: “We will be having conversations with those who were involved in this decision in an effort to make it a learning experience. The goal will be to further the students’ understanding that with the freedom of the press comes a certain level of responsibility about what is appropriate and effective in order to get their message across.”