Editor in Chief

Contrary to what some may think, reporting on accusations of public lewdness in the Pattee Library is no fun. With a story like this, the line between being professional and pandering to public curiosity shrinks to a width of pin.

I've taken a lot of phone calls and e-mails this week about our coverage of the charges against men's basketball player Stanley Pringle. The junior guard is currently facing charges of open lewdness and disorderly conduct.

I'm sure for many of you this story was nothing more than a funny post on perezhilton.com or a bad joke during Jay Leno's monologue, but to Pringle, his family and friends and the avid basketball fans at Penn State, this story wasn't fodder for some locker room one-liner.

Our readers had questions like: Why this story was printed? What about the newspaper's ethical obligations to the accused? Why is the name of the victim withheld? And, why did The Collegian use the word "masturbation"?

Some of these questions have uncomplicated answers; others don't, but a news story that was sports humor blog deadspin.com's "most read story of the day" deserves careful consideration.

We decided the story was newsworthy because charges were filed against a Penn State student in an on-campus incident involving another student. If any student faced similar charges, we would report on it. However, this student is also well-known for his skills on the basketball court, making him a public figure at this university.

Ethically, jumping to cover the story because of words like "masturbation" and "penis" is clearly immature and salacious, but not covering the story because of those same words is worse. We're all adults, and we tried to act like adults -- what Pringle is accused of is a crime and any on-campus crime is an issue that we believe is wholly relevant to student life.

We also always strive for clarity. While he was officially charged with "open lewdness," we decided that was not a well-known term. In contrast, we thought most readers would immediately understand what "public masturbation" entailed. We weren't trying to be facetious or graphic; we were trying to leave readers with a clear impression of the incident, according to police.

Of course, any story involving criminal charges is handled extra carefully. In these articles, newspapers have an obligation not only their readers, but to the victim and the accused. The victim's name is not present in the story because it is The Daily Collegian's policy not to name victims of sexual crimes. These types of crimes are already underreported, and by publicly naming the victims, others could be deterred from reporting such an assault. Furthermore, there is still a public stigma society attaches to victims of sexual crimes, who are often judged as much as their attacker.

As for the accused, we offer him or her the only thing we have -- space in the newspaper to tell his or her side of the story. When someone charged with a crime refuses to talk to us, we turn to the next best thing: the criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint offers a brief transcript of the police's interview with the accused. This is how we learned that Pringle told the officers that he was not masturbating but had his hand down his pants. We tried to be as fair as possible in choosing which quotes to publish, but in case you disagreed, we posted the full criminal complaint online so you could read it for yourselves.

This issue is by no means clear cut. Let us know what you think: Send a letter to the editor.