It’s been a long, exhilarating, frustrating week for the media relations staff of our campus. As mentioned in the previous post, my conference plans were pre-empted on Tuesday, Feb. 27, when I received word of an incident on campus in which a graduate student claiming to have a bomb and anthrax was subdued by campus police, then arrested and charged with six felonies. (It turns out there was no bomb, the white powdery substance the suspect carried was sugar and it was all a hoax.)
As I made my way back to Rolla from Myrtle Beach via a layover in Atlanta, I followed the story as it unfolded and stayed connected with our media relations folks via email and cell phone. (Thank you, Myrtle Beach airport, for free WiFi.) The picture I put together based on many of the media and blogosphere reports I read between flights was pretty sensational, as you might expect.
At the outset, we did not release the student’s name. He hadn’t yet been charged, and we decided that the release of that information should come either from the city police or the county prosecuting attorney. But we did respond in the affirmative when one reporter asked if the student was an international student. Once that was mentioned, right-leaning bloggers like Little Green Footballs and conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh homed in on that fact and leapt to the conclusion that the student must be an Islamic terrorist. (Limbaugh’s link was publicly available yesterday, but now it’s exclusive to members, and I haven’t kept up my membership. But the headline, “Sudden Jihad Syndrome Hits University of Missouri-Rolla,” sums up the gist of his take.)
Add to that the fact that the police had described his activities as “terroristic,” our decision to cancel classes for the day, and the mention of “anthrax,” and the presence of a bomb deactivation unit from a nearby military base, and you have the ingredients for some mighty fine tabloidism.
The update to Little Green Footballs’ initial report included this snippet:
The CNN report includes this:
The man’s identity and nationality were not released, though school spokesman Lance Feyh said he was an international student.
And from there the comments focused on the conspiracy to withhold his name and ethnicity.
But the blog’s later update sets the record straight:
The student who terrorized the University of Missouri-Rolla has been identified as a graduate student from India. … That looks like a Hindu name, but the types of threats he made were right out of the Islamic terror playbook.
Sighs.
To top it all off, a guy who is most likely a dittohead called me at the office Thursday afternoon. The conversation went something like this:
Dittohead: Are you all the ones who had the student that did the bomb threat?
Me: Yes.
Dittohead: What was his nationality?
Me: Who are you affiliated with, sir?
Dittohead: I’m with myself.
Me: OK. We don’t release that information due to FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. [Had he pursued, I would have explained that it was public record and he could obtain the information from the prosecuting attorney’s office.]
Dittohead: Well he’s a graduate student, so he’s an adult, right?
Me: He’s still protected by FERPA.
Dittohead: Was he a diaperhead?
Me: [pause]
Dittohead: He was a f___ing diaperhead, bitch!
Dittohead: [click]
Some folks wonder why I love this job so much. It’s because of the people.
Andrew Careaga 
Andy,
What about his rights and Steven Leonard showing the photos of his room, on television?
Does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act apply?
Bob
Andy,
Nobody’s talking about the invasion of his privacy by the media. Did the media have authorization to go into his room? (no, I am not talking about permission from his roommates)
The invasion took place the same day of the event. Why wasn’t his room off-limits? What if the authorities had later determined the room could contain critical evidence? What if something had been planted in that unsecured room?
:-)
Bob
Bob:
Good questions, but not pertinent to the focus of this blog. From what I understand, you’ve addressed your concerns with the appropriate officials.