Access Denied

So for the past couple of weeks I've been putting together a piece for Access (the school magazine) to run in their Spring 2007 issue. It's a fun piece: I asked ten RA's in the SJSU dorms to reveal their funniest/scariest/wildest experiences on duty. All was going well (and I was getting some great material) until I got the news today: I can't publish the stories. Apparently the RAs' supervisors got wind of my piece and forbid the RA's from talking to me and are contacting Access to ask that they not run my piece.

So, I will admit that it was bad on my part to not have done more research to begin with, and clear my idea with the campus housing people. Still, most of the stories I collected were light-hearted, with no names mentioned. I had also been in the process of negotiating with Access to keep my sources' names from being published anyway, since many of the RA's didn't want to embarrass the residents in the stories, even if they weren't named.

So the question rolling around in my head is, could this be considered a form of marketpalce censorship? Both Access and campus housing are affiliated with SJSU. Obviously, the housing department can't control what Access decides to publish, but then again it's not in Access's best interests to publish something that could potentially be damaging to a part of the university. Just something to think about. (Disclaimer: I don't think either the housing department or Access have done anything wrong in this case, I'm just interested in how the system works.)

I understand why campus housing wouldn't want RA's discussing incidents. Essentially, it makes them look bad. It can also hurt residents' confidence in the system, and infringe on their right to privacy. I believe that there's a level of confidentiality that should be upheld regarding incidents in the dorms, especially those of a more serious nature. So naturally, when I heard that my piece probably wouldn't run, I wasn't all that upset. In fact, I would much rather it not run in light of the current situation, as most of the RA's I interviewed are friends or just very nice people that I don't want to get in trouble. You see, technically Access might still be able to publish my article, as I have already sent them a fair amount of material. I seriously doubt that they're still considering it at this point, but on the off-chance that they did, these RA's could lose their jobs if identified. And that's something I really don't want on my conscience, or my record as a journalist.

It's funny, because in my magazine writing class today, (before I knew about the problem with my piece) I asked my teacher, "What happens if you publish something that a source has requested be off the record? Can they sue you?"

His reply was: "I don't know about suing you, but you can bet your sources are going to dry up real quick."

Sounds like a good enough reason to me.

UPDATE: Boy was I wrong: Access wants to go ahead and publish this article, with or without the OK of the housing department. Still, I've talked to housing and made arangements to have them look over my article. I'm going to do this with their OK, or not at all.

UPDATE: Now I'm a little confused. I've been in contact with one person in the housing department who has approved my piece, however, I've still been hearing from some of the RAs that their supervisors do not want any of my stories to be published, and are strictly forbidding them from talking to me.

UPDATE: Look for my byline in next semester's issue. :-)