Thursday night the conductor of the Wind Symphony and Concert Band declined to speak to a reporter following the performance given by the group. She said she has been misquoted in the past by our publication and did not want to be interviewed.
The conductor has been quoted in the recent past for things she said during public meetings, but has not been directly quoted from an interview since 2018, a time when only two current staffers from The Daily Eastern News were on staff, according to what we could find in our archives.
We get the frustration. No one wants to be misquoted or have their words misinterpreted.
When we make mistakes, we fix them, but we need people to work with us for the learning to happen in those situations.
Declining to speak to our staff only makes it harder for us to properly cover events happening on campus and makes it harder for us to learn how to be good journalists. We cannot do anyone on campus justice with our coverage when we cannot get something as simple as a quote from the person leading the event.
We cannot make any improvements if we do not have the opportunity to correct them.
Additionally, holding grudges against our staff is essentially pointless. Our staff cycles out every four years or so and it becomes a grudge against people who have no control over what their predecessors did in years past.
We don’t stop covering bands for playing the wrong notes, and we hope we can be afforded the same grace and chance to grow from our mistakes. We cannot do better if we are never given the chance to do so.