Prosecutors Drop Charges Over Fake Daily Northwestern Front Pages

EVANSTON, IL — After facing boycott from student groups, the publisher of Northwestern University's student-run newspaper has hired an attorney to press prosecutors to drop charges against a pair of students who allegedly wrapped fake front pages around copies of the paper on the Evanston campus in October.

The parody copies of The Daily Northwestern, titled "The Northwestern Daily," accused the university of complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people. They featured fabricated quotations from university officials and a fake advertisement for Birthright Israel.

The student paper is managed independently of the university and its journalism school by a not-for-profit called Students Publishing Company. In the wake of the distribution of the fake papers, representatives of the organization condemned what they described as an "act of vandalism" and announced that they had "engaged law enforcement to investigate and find those responsible."

John Byrne, the chair of the company's 13-member volunteer board, expressed regret on behalf of the board for the "unintended consequences of our actions since that tampering," including the criminal charges filed against two students accused of producing the fake papers and the resulting distress among student journalists.

In a statement to the Northwestern community, Byrne said the disturbing words and images on the fake front page were not the reason for the board's response.

"It was the use of The Daily as a vehicle to distribute the fake front page that upset us," Byrne said. "This co-opting of the work of our student journalists and the potential damage to the reputation of the paper built upon more than a century of hard work was the problem."

Explaining why the board chose to press charges via the university's private security force, Byrne compared the distribution of the fake front page to hackers getting into the paper's website and replacing its content with their own.

"So, we reported the tampering to Northwestern Police, thinking this was our best option. Our intent was to protect the student journalists at The Daily, as well as the paper’s reputation. We wanted to show how much we valued our students’ efforts and our front page, the manifestation of the best of our journalists’ reporting efforts," he said.

"Once we informed the NU Police of the incident, their investigation identified two people who were possibly involved. At that point, we were asked to sign 'complaints' against those two individuals, presumably as part of the investigation. We didn’t understand how these complaints started a process that we could no longer control — and something we never intended."

Byrne said prosecutors from the Cook County State's Attorney's never informed the company's board that the two students would be charged. He said prosecutors never asked board members if they wanted to pursue charges against the students, and members of the university's security force did not respond to requests for information about the case.

"It’s only been in the last four days that we learned more information about the people charged: that they are students; that they are Black. Some may disagree, but these facts matter to us," Byrne said.

A day earlier, 70 student organizations announced a boycott of the paper and its publishing company, announcing they would "not speak, collaborate or engage with The Daily Northwestern or the SPC" until the organization sought to drop the charges and dismiss the complaint.

"We have been listening to our fellow community members, and they have been heard. We understand and recognize why we need to take action. We hope to heal the hurt and repair the relationships that have been damaged and frayed by our unintentional foray into the criminal justice system," Byrne said in the statement, published late Tuesday by the Daily.

"So, what are we doing? As of yesterday, we have hired legal counsel to work on our behalf with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to pursue a resolution to this matter that results in nothing punitive or permanent," said the SPC board chair. "Since we are not a party to the case, we lack any authority to ensure this resolution, but we intend to use all available resources in good faith to try to get there."

UPDATE: The Cook County State's Attorney's Office issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon announcing that Northwestern's private police force was responsible for the charges, since the prosecutor's office only reviews felony charges — not misdemeanors — prior to filing.

"Given the specific nature of these cases, we have thoroughly reviewed the circumstances and spoken with the campus newspaper publisher, the complainant, and we are dismissing the charges in agreement with the publisher. Our criminal justice system should only be utilized when there in no other recourse for accountability," it said.

"Northwestern University and campus police are fully equipped to hold the involved individuals accountable, ensuring that such matters are handled in a manner that is both appropriate to the educational context and respectful of students' rights."

Read more: Criminal Charges Over Parody Northwestern Newspaper Spark Outrage