"The Marijuana Newsworthiness"
February 15, 2011
"Marijuana at BYU-Idaho"
Last week, The Scroll, Brigham Young University – Idaho (BYU-I)’s newspaper, reported on its cover headline that BYU-I students were arrested on one of the University’s approved hosing for possession and distribution of Marijuana.
(Scroll headline, February 8, 2011)
The combination of a strict Honor Code contract among students, remote location, and strong LDS community values, makes rare to hear about drug related problems involving the University.
The picture showed several small bags filled with marijuana supposedly confiscated from the arrested students.
This news was a big shocker for most. First, many students complained that the newspaper is falling in a trend of reporting bad news instead of happy news. (This is following the unreported rape cases article from previous week.)
Now, finding out that there was place for such a thing as marijuana on BYU-I was definitely a newsworthy article.
“Oops!”
This week however, the “Scroll corrections” clarified that:
a) “The two people arrested were charged with a misdemeanor and not a felony. “
b) "The amount of marijuana in question was not sufficient to be deemed as an “intent to deliver,”
c) "The arrested “were not registered students of BYU-I,”
d) The arrests “were not made at an University approved housing,” AND
e) The photograph published with the article was from the newspaper archive and not from the arrest made.
(Scroll Correction, February 15, 2011)
And the newsworthiness went down the toilet.
