Of News, News Sites, and Chicken Sandwiches

Updated 2/24/16, 9:05 a.m.

There’s been a bit of a hullabaloo on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus for the last week or so over what restaurants students would like to see come to the student union.  There was a student poll that included  Chick-fil-A in the list of choices.  After the survey found that lots of students like the company’s chicken sandwiches, the university was reminded that Chick-fil-A’s ownership has not always been particularly friendly to the LGBT community. (Not the restaurants themselves – just ownership.) So a second survey was done, this time with the chicken-choice being the newer chain Raising Cane’s. Not surprisingly, this choice was also popular. Contrary to claims that have been made in stories from a variety of web sites, the university has yet to make a decision about which restaurant to invite to come to campus.

So that brings us the topic at hand.

Stories that claim to be about UNK “banning” Chick-Fil-A from campus have been posted to several web sites. These stories then get shared all over social media.  And so the story has gone national, a university PR person has been mocked as a “spokes-dude,” and lots of people from around the country who have never been to Kearney have weighed in on the “scandal.”

The story first broke on The Daily Wire, a conservative news site operated by Ben Shapiro, who is a writer/editor for conservative news site Breitbart.com.  Under a headline of “Chick-Fil-A Banned From The University of Nebraska Because CEO Supports Traditional Marriage”, the story then spread across Facebook and Twitter.  The Daily Wire’s stated goal is to “unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases.”

A second story appeared a day or two later on FoxNews.com as an opinion piece by commentator Todd Starnes. In the middle of the story is a promo calling readers to “Click Here to join Todd’s American Dispatch – a must-read for Conservative Patriots!”  This is the story that refers to UNK’s PR professional as a “spokes-dude.”

Todd Starne’s article links to another one at Campus Reform that carries the headline “UNK refuses to bring Chick-fil-A to campus over CEO’s marriage views.” Campus Reform gives as its mission: “As a watchdog to the nation’s higher education system, Campus Reform exposes bias and abuse on the nation’s college campuses.”

Campus Reform is a web site run by The Leadership Institute, which has as its mission: “The Leadership Institute’s mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative activists and leaders in the public policy process.”

So where are we seeing this story play out? Of course there are stories in the local paper, The Kearney Hub. Stories that are accurate and give a fair look at what’s actually happening. There’s a mocking opinion piece on FoxNews.com that is more concerned with making a point about conservative chicken sandwiches than giving an understanding of the facts.  And there are stories about the controversy on activist web sites that have the goal of advancing a conservative agenda.

In closing, here are a few tweets from local reporter Josh Moody who has done a good job of accurately reporting the conflict: