Center Field Club Charter Vetoed on Fifth Anniversary

Photo via Jonathan Kinane ‘23

Center Field had higher expectations for its fifth anniversary than getting its club charter rejected by SGA. 

Back in the summer of 2022, the Faculty Advisor, Leander Schaerlaekens, and the newly appointed Editor in Chief, Jonathan Kinane ‘23, discussed how they could get more of an outreach on campus. Center Field, Marist’s student-run sports news publication which was founded in 2018 is funded and published through the Center of Sports Communication in the School of Communication and the Arts. 

To obtain both a more diverse membership and editorial independence, Kinane and Schaerlaekens agreed that becoming a club under the Student Government Association (SGA) would be beneficial to the organization. 

The process of becoming a club is lengthy. Members must pitch the idea to the Club Liaison, have countless meetings with SGA to build the structure of the bylaws and budget, and get approved by the initial board all before bringing it to a final assembly. With a majority vote the assembly can either pass or fail the club’s charter. 

According to Student Body President Gabriel Borbon ‘23, Center Field’s chartering process was a little different. While both SGA and Center Field can agree that there were no major bumps in the road throughout the duration of the charter, conflict arrived in their final assembly meeting. 

Specifically, an incident regarding a Center Field article published in May of 2022 “caused worry” with SGA. This story in question was written by Kinane himself. 

The article reported how former Marist student and basketball star, Jao Ituka, who transferred to Wake Forest University for the Fall ‘22 semester, was involved in a physical altercation on campus. The story included how Ituka became involved in the altercation with another Marist student who was acting in a racist and homophobic way, including making death threats towards Ituka, which are all evidenced in the article. 

Kinane explained how difficult it was to write this story both emotionally and professionally because of how disgusting the behavior towards Ituka was. However, as a journalist, Kinane said it is his job to present the facts of the situation. 

The article not only took a while to investigate and to write, but also needed to be edited intensively, making sure that everything written was legally and morally sound. For this to happen, the article passed through two Center Field editors, Shaerlaekens, the Dean of the School of Communication and the Arts and a school lawyer.

As the article itself states: “Center Field reached out to both Ituka and Cooper for comment, but neither responded. Marist Athletics also declined to comment.”

Because the main subjects of the article declined to comment on this story, SGA felt as though the story itself was not up to their own ethical and moral standards. 

“Evidently, it is something that could affect [the subjects of the articles] for the rest of their lives,” said Borbon.

“My main concern was the decision-making process and the approval and editing of the article. We wanted to see whether or not it was proper and up to the SGA standards,” said Borbon. “Making sure to ask the subject of the article whether or not it should be published is important.”

SGA raised their concerns in the final assembly meeting. For Center Field to become an official club under SGA, they would have to adhere to certain conditions that included completely removing the Ituka story from their website and social media and also to agree to have subjects of articles sign a consent form when the story itself was deemed sensitive. However, these conditions were not mentioned throughout the chartering process and were only brought up in the final assembly meeting.

Kinane and the board were originally under the impression that the meeting was just a formality that included a presentation, a few questions and the final signatures – but that was not the case. 

“The meeting was not easy for me because it was my neck on the line,” said Kinane. He explained that if they were not hearing any backlash days or weeks after the story, then taking the story down eight months later would accomplish nothing, especially with the story being completely legally grounded. 

Despite this claim, Ituka did address the story in social media comments soon after publication. Ituka posted multiple comments, some pleading for Center Field to take down the story and the post. 

“Even though they were unhappy about it, and even though it exposed a racist, nobody has said that anything in it was wrong, so why would you take it down?” said Shaerlakens. 

Furthermore, the two groups did not agree on the idea of a consent form for article subjects. 

“Center Field needs editorial independence so that it can publish what it sees fit without interference,” explained Shaerlakens. One of the main reasons that they were applying for club status through SGA was to obtain this editorial freedom and not have their publication restrained by consent clauses. “If that were industry practice, no journalism would ever get done.”

Overall, Center Field believes that publications need to express their own discretion about what they are going to print and what they aren’t. 

In the eyes of Kinane, “Having to ask permission to publish something is not journalism. Just because someone tells you not to publish something, doesn’t mean that we are going to lay off a newsworthy story.” With that, Center Field will not agree to club status under these conditions. 

Because of this, SGA has decided as an assembly that “it should not be up to them [SGA] to police [Center Field’s] writings.” Borbon “felt that their relationship had already been strained and would continue to be strained.” He elaborated that “it was very difficult for [SGA] to swallow the Ituka article, and they believe that there were too many professional disagreements, which is fine, for Center Field is still able to write their articles under the Center for Sports Communication.”

“We have close to 1,300 stories published, and to have one singled out like this seems unfair,” said Kinane. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that SGA is not coming from a journalistic perspective and may not fully understand the position of the press in a society. “In our role, if we know of something like this that happens, I strongly feel that it is our job to report on this and report on this fairly.”

“We stand by everything. The story they were upset about went through a lot of layers of verification. I genuinely can’t think of anything I would do differently,” said Shaerlakens. “We are going to keep publishing one way or another.”

Looking forward, SGA and Center Field stand at a stalemate, with both sides prevailing in their own beliefs. 

Center Field recently celebrated their fifth anniversary on Feb. 12, the same week of their assembly meeting and rejection from club status. While Center Field may not have this official status under SGA, they will remain publishing through the Center of Sports Communications and are excited for the “young blood” to step up in the upcoming semester. Overall, Kinane and Shaerlakens agree that Center Field has had a “really good year” and are excited to take on new stories for the remainder of the year. 

“I think that it is important that we wish them the best in their future endeavors and hope that they have success under the Center for Sports Communications,” said Borbon.