An explanation of the redacted paragraphs in the February 28 issue of the McDaniel Free Press
By Ryan Chell, Sports Co-Editor
To all of our devoted readers, the casual ones and fans of McDaniel athletics who just tune into our section for some insight:
With this being my third year writing for the Free Press Sports Section and going into my second year as sports co-editor, I feel we do a very good job of covering the sports here on campus, spreading out attention evenly, doing previews and game coverage, as well as offering thoughtful insight into the teams we all root for on the Hill.
It may have come to your attention that in our last issue, in my article about the basketball team and their final week of the season, two paragraphs were blacked out on every copy of the paper distributed across campus.
The information blacked out of those paragraphs were regarding information based on the incident that supposedly was the reason behind the eventual suspension of star junior, Chad Arrington, from the basketball team.
From what I was told, that information is not correct, and if it was, I could not find anyone to go on record saying this information.
First and foremost, I would like to apologize to you readers for not going through all the necessary steps, precautions and “rules of journalism” with those paragraphs. I would like to apologize to Chad if any rumors were spread because of this, and for making the lie spread even more; to Coach Curley for the unnecessary attention it may have caused over the weekend as his team prepared for the playoff game against Dickinson; to fellow staff writer Dave Nasongkhla for my marker ruining his article on the other side of the page; as well as to Chris Prior, whose Hopkins stats were in that paragraph and had to be taken out.
And lastly, I would like to apologize to our readers for making a mistake that I should not have made in the first place.
I take full responsibility for my actions and mistakes. I will not throw anyone under the bus, saying “Oh, so and so told me this; it’s their fault.” It was my name at the front of the article, and first and foremost, it is my sports section.
And if you want proof as to how dedicated I am to keeping the integrity of not only my section but the entire paper, I spent five hours last Thursday going through about 600 issues blocking out those paragraphs, and here I am today facing my mistakes instead of hiding from them.