Editor’s column: Unverified sources found in Volante

As journalists representing “The Students’ Voice since 1887” at the University of South Dakota, our sole purpose in the newsroom is to provide our readers with honest, fair and accurate news.

But last week, questionable sources arose in multiple articles written by one Volante reporter, potentially violating the newspaper’s Code of Ethics by distorting the truth.

Over the course of nine months, reporter and former assistant news editor Joey Sevin wrote six articles with as many as 10 student sources who have yet to be verified for their existence.

Discrepancies in the Oct. 23 article, “Local companies offer dorm insurance,” led Volante staff to fact-check two student sources used in the story; sophomore Daniel Durnham and junior Hannah Fourare.

Volante staff used the Office of the Registrar, the USD website directory, officials from Student Life and various Google searches to check the names, and were unable to verify either students’ attendance to the university.

Being unable to prove the existence of either source, Volante staff fact-checked all articles submitted by Sevin in the course of his employment with the newspaper by the same means listed above, and were unable to verify eight more sources in five other articles.

The five other stories in question and their unverified student sources are as follows:

— “Off-campus dining provides students options,” published Feb. 27; first-year Timothy Greene

— “Former residence hall slated for future demolitions,” published April 24; junior Danielle Rochester

— “Students to experience a 13.6 percent cost increase,” published May 2; first-year Erica Debuq, first-year Thomas Sollerfield, junior Jake Holk

— “Crazies capture ‘organized chaos,’ ” published Aug. 28; first-year Morgan Alderman, sophomore Rachel Sterne

— “ ‘3 plus 3’ rule under review at USD’s law school,” published Oct. 23; junior Kirsten Attoms

Confronted with this information, Sevin denied fabricating the sources.

His position with The Volante was terminated Oct. 28.

The decision to disclose the reporter’s name was ultimately left up to myself as the editor in chief. As someone who holds her staff to the expectations held in any professional, independent organization, I chose to disclose his name to maintain our transparency of the situation and to allow our readers to understand that we, as reporters, hold ourselves to the same, if not higher, standards of accountability for the work we knowingly publish.

While I hold this reporter responsible for as many as 10 unverifiable student sources, I also hold the rest of the newspaper staff, myself included, responsible.

After two years of employment, there was an established trust with this reporter. We had our guard down in editing this former staff member’s work, and allowed these unverified sources to be published.

I have reviewed our fact-checking policy, and after considerable discussion with fellow senior staff members, we now require reporters — novice and veteran — to submit a source fact sheet with their articles. The sheets require a listing of the name and contact information for the source, and sheets will have to be turned in to each section editor and verified before the story can be placed in the newspaper.

The questionable stories written by Sevin are also in the process of being rewritten by staff members to be published on The Volante’s website.

We understand, as a staff, the impact such an incident can have on our credibility as an accurate and honest news source, and will work to regain the trust of our readers, who we value the opinion of above all else.