GUSA vice president-elect Brian Walsh (COL ’02) announced his decision yesterday to drop his proposal to form a GUSA journalism review committee that would have reviewed formal complaints of journalistic inaccuracy and impropriety in the campus media.

“While it was an excellent idea, I think it is probably outside of GUSA’s authority and ability,” Freshman GUSA Representative Somil Trivedi (COL ’04) said. “It would set a precedent that I am not sure we could follow up.”

Trivedi said he thinks a better approach is to encourage campus publications to establish advocacy boards to which readers could present their complaints.

According to Walsh, the JRC would have been a standing committee comprised of students, faculty and staff. Following an investigation of the complaint, the JRC could have cited the publication with a violation of journalistic ethics or university policy. While the decision would have been made public, it would not have been binding. Walsh said the committee could have passed their decision along to the Media Board who would ultimately have the ability to take punitive action. However, he said the JRC would have been entirely independent of the Media Board.

“It was just an idea … I wanted to see how the Assembly felt about it,” Walsh said. “I did it in the interest of fairness and balance.”

Many of the GUSA Assembly members did not respond favorably to his proposal.

It was a good idea but it went a little too far,” Freshman Class Representative Anthony Marinello (COL ’04) said. “I felt like the wording was too strong in the body itself … and the Media Board is already there to do that job anyway.”

Aaron Kass (COL ’02) agreed with Marinello. “It’s not a good next step … we are treading on dangerous territory,” he said.

Walsh said his proposal was connected to the GUSA Assembly’s resolution calling for an apology from The Georgetown Academy for what they considered “insulting, slanderous and racist comments.”

Because the Academy is an independent publication not officially associated with the university, the Media Board, which oversees campus publications, has no official authority over it and cannot pursue sanctions against it as some suggested at the meeting.

The resolution, which passed by a 12-2 vote, said that the Academy “crossed the line of journalistic integrity, civility, good judgment, basic decency and acceptable behavior,” in its Attic Salts feature, which appears regularly in the monthly publication.