I was mad. I couldn’t believe what I found Friday morning as I went from building to building, seeing all the copies of The Daily Eastern News gone from every rack.

Members of the band had successfully taken all the copies in an attempt to prevent students from reading the front-page news story.

I expected there would be some people who were upset, but I didn’t expect this. It is understood why people would be concerned with the story running, but this is why we took the amount of care that we did with such a sensitive topic as rape.

The paper had heard what had happened before Thanksgiving break but did not have enough information to run with the story. I asked one of the most experienced writers to handle the story because I knew he would pursue every angle.

It started with obtaining a police report from the Martin Police Department in Tennessee. The reporter then spoke with the criminal investigator from Martin to confirm the report’s information.

We still did not have enough information to go with the story. The reporter then called the woman Wednesday, but was told to call back Thursday for a scheduled interview.

The reporter spoke with her, quoted her and made it clear to her that the story would be running the next day. The reporter also tried to contact band director Christine Beason, but she refused comment on the matter.

The story was printed after The DEN’s editorial adviser and top editors carefully went through it.

We did everything we could to be fair with a story that was more than something personal to those involved – an alleged crime involving an Eastern student.

This could have happened to almost any group or organization that takes trips off campus, and it was important to let students know these things can happen.

Running the story also informs women to be more careful at parties and for women to stay in groups and not let friends leave with someone they don’t know.

This was not an attack, and with the approval of the woman, we were confident and comfortable with our reasons for running the story.

This student, who not even half of the six-member editorial board knows the name of and whose name was not published, was only given more grief by what was done by band members.

If anyone had a problem with the story they could have called me at 581-7936, e-mailed me at [email protected] or stopped by the office at 1811 Buzzard Hall.

That is an option for any student, faculty member or member of the community and is also printed in multiple areas of the paper.

As of Sunday, I had received only one phone call and two letters, all of which were taken seriously. Though these responses were negatively aimed toward publishing the story, the people were mature enough to handle it the way they did.

I should not have had to go pull papers out of recycling bins and garbage cans because a group of people was not happy with our decisions.

There weren’t any complaints of objectivity because we took the appropriate steps to get both sides of the story. The question was the news judgment, and as Editor in Chief I would run this type of story again with the relevant information.

And if something this sensitive was to happen again, we hope people will take the step to talk to us instead of taking measures into their own hands.