Students help community face fallout after Nassar, #metoo movement
As Michigan State University continues to reel from the effects of Larry Nassar, student journalists are diligently covering the fallout, it’s national spotlight and the local politics of how their school is moving forward. But the coverage isn’t new. The former MSU faculty member and 29-year USA Gymnastics physician has been in the news since 2016, when two former gymnasts accused the doctor of sexual assault and shared their stories with the IndyStar. Weeks prior, the IndyStar published an investigation into how USA Gymnastics failed to protect youth from sexual abuse.
Since then, at least 119 women, from Olympic gold medalists to former MSU gymnasts, have come forward about the abuse they faced from Nassar. He has been charged with multiple federal counts of child pornography and first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the fallout. And on campus, the State News covered the calls for faculty to resign since the #metoo movement brought to light more cases of sexual abuse and assault across the campus.
While half a dozen faculty members have stepped down or faced punishment for allowing the culture that let Nassar continue, the campus in East Lansing is still trying to gain a sense of resolve. Last week, The State News obtained an unedited version of the Alumni magazine that was scrapped by the Interim president before publication this summer. The original magazine was themed around Nassar’s abuse and sexual assault as a whole, featuring alumni stories, the psychological impact of sexual abuse and ways to support survivors.
In the new edition, much of the content was cut and instead gave a broad sweep of what the university has achieved across colleges, with the main story shifting to an interview with the Interim president on how the school “faced the most difficult challenge in its history.” For the weekly tab published Thursday, the State News explored the backlash of how the university handles moving forward and giving victims, alumni, and the community time and space to heal.
Editor-in-Chief Marie Weidmayer said being an independent student paper has allowed them to be critical of Michigan State and report on stories the administration may not like. “This means that we do not feel as if we need to shy away from the hard questions, and I know the whole newsroom appreciates that ability,” she explained. The freedom to write editorials critical of the administration, such as calling for then-President Lou Anna K. Simon to resign, has been an important part of that independence.
Covering the fallout from Nassar over several years means the newsroom works to provide enough context to those who have not been following from the beginning. Weidmayer said they were able to expand coverage off campus in East Lansing, covering organizations such as Twistars and other organizations to tell the full story.
And their effort for serving their community are being noticed, from professional media organizations to the Associated Collegiate Press. The State News was one of 23 student papers awarded a Pacemaker in 2017 and recently announced a finalist for the 2018 award. News organizations are acknowledged for coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership, design, photography and graphics.
Daena Faustino graduated this spring and just began working as the Creative Advisor for The State News. She was a graphic designer at the newspaper since 2015, and ultimately led editorial and advertising design with a staff of four. Since there were two designers working on the print layout, they often collaborated with other departments to best tackle design requests and work with advertising space.
Faustino said when the Nassar story broke, she wasn’t particularly privy to the situation. “In recent years the news cycle in general gave me so much anxiety that I had to spend time away from consuming any news at times. Up until then, I had just let the news be a job,” she said. “My perspective took a major shift when newsroom did a story on the #MeToo Movement. I think that’s when things started to be more than just a job. The news was about real people that I knew. As a woman of color, a student and a friend of people who have experienced sexual assault, it got hard to read some of the stories but I had to acknowledge them. What they said was their reality. They deserve to be heard.”
Weidmayer noted that as the #metoo movement gained traction around the time of Nassar’s sentencing, it is hard to separate them as two events. “But, I believe there are more people willing to speak out about their experiences and they are more willing to be interviewed,” she said.
Working to share the outpouring of stories was a challenge. “When I wasn’t trying to read stories, I had to lay them out so that other people could. It was heavy to be bombarded with the same kind of story for days on end. It exhausted a lot of my emotional energy sometimes, it sometimes got downright dismal, but this in the end gave way to a lot of hope. It’s easy to get numb, but I was surrounded by amazing and supportive people. We had each other’s backs if we couldn’t handle things on our own,” Faustino said. The community in student media allowed them to tackle these problems in the local and national spotlight as a team. “It is a learning process for everybody involved, especially the community. Everyone is equal in student media because we’re all here to learn and navigate these waters together. Our job is to tell the stories we believe will keep our communities well-informed and thriving.
If we, a ragtag group of students, could make someone listen to the survivors’ stories and call to action real change, then the exhaustion wouldn’t even matter in the end. What mattered was that we could help add to the good.”
