Letter From the Editor: Reflecting on the Tripod’s Year of Coverage

Olivia Silvey ’25

Editor-in-Chief

As everyone is aware, today marks just over a year since the Oct. 7 attacks. I remember waking up and seeing the headline on my news app, but not really understanding what it meant – up until that point in my life, the “question of Palestine” was only a fuzzy bit of knowledge in my head. I didn’t understand the full history. 

After Oct. 7, my former co-Editor and I wrote a split editorial about Israel and Palestine, which was my first written venture into the subject. Then came the task of how to cover the impact of this global event on our campus, while staying true to our identity as a college newspaper. Spoiler alert: it was difficult. 

We first published an overall account of the attacks, which didn’t draw much controversy. I then made the misstep of publishing the Nov. 7 “Trinity College Reacts Tepidly to Genocide of Palestinian People.” Specifically, the choice of the “News Team” byline (instead of naming the actual writers) called into question the integrity of the Tripod and our journalistic standards. 

I addressed this piece and my decision to greenlight it at the Tripod’s Bicentennial panel in late November, but with more clarity and surer footing a year later, I think it’s important to circle back to it when discussing our coverage of Palestine. 

I don’t know if everyone remembers how hard fall 2023 was in terms of campus and global climate. The movement against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians hadn’t spread to the scale it stands at today, and it was terrifying to critically analyze our institution’s actions, or lack thereof, around the issue. The claims of antisemitism whenever someone would criticize an institution for doing anything not pro-Israel still had a chokehold on many. The important work of educating the world on the difference between Zionism and Judaism, and therefore critiques of Zionism and acts of antisemitism, had yet to spread as far as it has today. 

I take full responsibility for the anonymous news byline – which is not a standard in journalism whatsoever – because I wanted to protect the writers from the backlash that would ultimately come anyways. The staff was at the forefront of my mind, and my ultimate goal was to spread important information without compromising our editors. I made a mistake. 

As for the contents of the article, while claimed as controversial by our critics, I’m glad that our people stepped up to write it. I’m glad we continued to cover student protests, walkouts and other events relating to the global issue. I’m glad we were able to report on the horrific shooting of our classmate. All of these news stories are vital to Trinity’s timeline. 

As I hope many of you remember, we also published both anonymous and signed op-eds, from Zionists, people who are pro-Palestinian and those who are neither. We caught a ton of heat for those anonymous ones (at least, the ones written from a Palestinian perspective) – if anyone attended the November Bicentennial panel, you know what I’m talking about. 

All of this coverage throughout the last year is continually difficult. I don’t say that in a “poor us” way, but rather in a way that calls attention to the role of student journalism during these times. I believe it is our job to accurately report campus happenings to the best of our ability – in accordance with our guidelines and journalistic ethics – while also acknowledging that neutrality and objectivity are never fully possible, even in places like the news section. I’m sure that statement might rile some people up, but stay with me: there will always be bias in whatever piece of writing is produced. Who were your interviewees? Who did you quote? What sources did you use? What minute details did you deem worthy of inclusion vs. not? What language did you use, and how did you refer to certain groups of people vs. others? These are all questions that myself and our team of editors ask ourselves and each other with each piece, regardless of if it’s about Palestine. 

I won’t pretend our group of student editors have all of this figured out – I think this editorial makes that quite clear. I do think it’s important to forge ahead, lean on each other and admit to mistakes as we try to figure it out. I much prefer struggling through than sitting back and letting important moments on campus pass by just because we don’t have all the right answers. 

I urge everyone to struggle through together. 

With peace,

– OPS