Cerritos College, currently, does not have guidelines on how to deal with media like newspaper or other outside media.
Miya Walker, director of College Relations and Public Affairs, along with the Union President Dr. Solomon Namala and Faculty Senate President Michelle Lewellen, have drafted new media procedures.
These media procedures would require outside newspapers or other media to go through Public Affairs in order to be able to interview anyone on campus, including students.
The reporter would have to be accompanied by a Public Affairs staff member or campus employee designated by Public Affairs.
Internally, if a staff or faculty member want to advertise a program or other event, they “are encouraged to coordinate through Public Affairs prior to distribution.” Public Affairs would also determine if the “written materials require editing, format changes or revisions…,” according to the draft as of Dec. 1.
Political science Professor Terrence Mullins expressed his concern over the policy.
“I see potential problems, I can see it used as a weapon against those who say something that’s unpopular. I also see it as a violation of academic freedom,” he said.
Mullins explained that there is a board policy of academic freedom in which a professor is allowed to speak (his) mind, outside of the classroom and within.
“I do believe the purpose of it is to control the narrative and sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes that can be used to curtail speech to protect image. I can see the benefit of this, and understand the argument of why it’s necessary. None the less, I’m against it,” he added.
He also expressed his concern over whether this could affect the operation of Talon Marks.
Walker addressed these concerns by saying that the right to free expression is a right for everyone, but from an institutional perspective, that staff can’t speak for the college.
“No one is saying this procedure is to strangle the voice of staff or faculty, it’s really meant as a guideline and as a way to allow the college and all of us to get on the same page,” she said.
Walker explained that the new board policy would in no way affect Talon Marks and was only targeting outside media outlets.
Part of her job is to assess the campus communication with outside media.
“In my assessment, I determined that we did not have a procedure in place that gave us any guidance on how we communicated with the media, so that’s how it came about,” she added.
According to President Linda Lacy, the college has been working on a media policy since Mark Wallace, the former director of public and governmental relations, retired. When Miya Walker filled the role after Wallace’s retirement, she picked up where he left off.
“Public Affairs deals with a wide variety of areas; we deal with external media, community relations, campus relations, public affairs which is governmental relations. Those are the areas we deal with, as well as advertising and maketing,” she said.
For example, external news or media outlets would have to go through Public Affairs to interview staff, faculty or students.
Outside reporters would also have to have press credentials on them at all times while on campus.
Another provision of the draft would be that a PR person or a person designated by PR has to be present.
External media includes, but is not limited to, print newspapers, online newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, online journals and radio.
Because of the concern regarding Talon Marks, Lacy suggested that a disclaimer be added to the policy draft, to make it clear that policy would have no effect on the student media.
“[Talon Marks] will continue as normal. It was clear to us that it would not affect Talon Marks but I think we could make it more clear,” Lacy said.
She stressed that this was not to intimidate.She enourages free thinking, since this is a community college.
“The main thing is that we have a consistent and well-informed message going out of Cerritos College, that’s our main concern,” Lacy added.
Walker reiterated that by saying that the point of the draft was to have the college “communicate in a way that’s cohesive to the public and to the internal campus.”
“For example, the psychology department won a big psychology award with Professor Duff. It was awesome and (it) sent us the information and (it) said ‘we’d appreciate you getting the word out.’”
From there, her department’s job is to write up a a press release and coordinate with the psychology department to make sure the press release is accurate.
