The folks on Jeopardy would have trouble finding enough answers to fill the board if the category were “Famous Media Ethicists.” With apologies to Jay and Cliff and Lee and John and everybody who has published a tome on the topic, there’s just one answer on the board to this question:

Who is Sarah Palin?

Among other things, the former vice-presidential candidate is a journalism graduate. The last stop on her five-school undergraduate career was the University of Idaho, where she spent five semesters before graduating in 1987.

Kenton Bird, director of the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Media , says he’s just now getting over the blizzard of calls and out-of-town reporters who parachuted last year into Moscow, Idaho. How he dealt with questions about the school’s most famous alumna – a woman he’s never met – is a textbook example of what to do when a former student puts your program in the spotlight.

“My phone started ringing at 8 a.m. on Friday the 29th of August,” he said, “and that was at the point when my e-mail was overflowing. I didn’t catch up until after the Christmas break.”

It starts by knowing the law. The Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act limits what information that universities can release about former students, and Bird says he stayed in contact with university lawyers, the registrar’s office and media relations officials. (An example: the university decided that Palin’s minor was not public information, even though he let it slip to an AP reporter (and U of Idaho graduate) that she had a minor in political science.)

“As a former journalist, frustrating to me was my inability to respond in a timely manner and to be as complete and timely as I would have liked to be because of FERPA and time constraints,” he said.

The bigger issue is what a professor should say about a former student, especially one he didn’t teach. Academicians, especially in administrative positions, feel a tug between academic freedom and the need to not hurt the image of their academic units and their university. That has been especially difficult in the case of Palin, who has made some comments that make some wonder if she was paying attention in her J-school classes.

She complained about “gotcha” questions and double standards. She lumped “media” into one big pile that didn’t distinguish between bloggers, doppelganger actress Tina Fey and Pulitzer Prize winners. In late October, she essentially said that First Amendment freedoms are threatened by media who question public officials. If media “convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” she told conservative talk-show host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Bird’s response has been a measured one, starting by using it as a learning opportunity for students. Her name came up in nearly every class in the fall, he said, giving students “a great opportunity to personalize the political” because they “could relate to her experience as a student here.”

In popular press, he worked to explain the university’s journalism school and remind the public that ethics classes provide frameworks, not answers.

And, like a good professor, Bird landed a publication. In the December 2008 British Journalism Review, he wrote that Palin would be well served to use her journalism training at Idaho to inform her politics.

“Having become a figure on the national stage who is unlikely to retreat quietly to her home State,” he wrote, “Governor Palin must apply the best of her journalism training to her office and not slip into the bad habits that have caused large segments of the U.S. broadcast and cable news outlets to lose credibility with the public. From politicians, the public deserves better.”

Online:

University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media responses to Sarah Palin

* Conde Nast’s Portolio: http://tinyurl.com/3q45jw

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/10/01/idaho-j-school-prof-palins-wrong-about-ethics

* Bird, K. (2008). “Sarah Palin’s a Journalist, Too.” British Journalism Review 19(4), 13-16. Online at http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2008/no4_bird