Honesty is our policy

We looked like idiots Thursday. \nWe ran a story on the front page of the Indiana Daily Student about the amenities and cool things that greek houses across campus boast. \nThe first section in the story was about the hot tub at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.\nThe problem?\nPhi Psi has no hot tub. Members of the fraternity lied to us and, as a result, lied to the community.\nOur reporter, Kasey Hawrysz, verified the information about the hot tub with three ranking members of the fraternity. For a noncontroversial story -- as the article, "Chapters boast all the luxuries of home -- and more" was supposed to be -- three different sources is a reasonable standard of accuracy for the IDS.\nWe work hard to report the truth, but it is practically impossible to verify visually each and every fact every day -- especially in a light-hearted story.\nThat is why we are placing the blame for this error squarely on the shoulders of Phi Psi. \nThe reporter e-mailed each of the fraternity and sorority presidents asking whether their houses had anything interesting to offer. Several fraternity and sorority presidents responded to her with stories about fingerprint scanners and in-house gyms.\nFormer Phi Psi President and current IU Student Association Vice President for Congress Clark Kaericher responded to our reporter in an e-mail, saying that his fraternity's most interesting feature was a hot tub. \nKaericher lied. He said in a phone interview Monday night that he was only joking, but he made no effort to correct the misinformation before the story ran, despite attempts by the reporter to follow up with him.\nAnd, having no reason to question the news tip, the reporter pursued the story. After she e-mailed several fraternity members, looking for information about the alleged hot tub, the fraternity's social chair, Jonathan Gallagher, contacted her. \nGallagher told a story about how fraternity members use the tub every day and about how the fraternity was able to finance and install the hot tub. He directed her to house manager, Erik Styacich, who told her he uses the hot tub every day. Both students intentionally lied to her, to the newspaper and to the public.\nKaericher, who is an elected representative of the student body, even told Phi Psi President David Weller the day before the article ran to "check out the IDS" because "there will be a funny article in it," Weller said Monday in a meeting with the IDS.\nAs such, we expect the fraternity to publicly apologize for knowingly lying to its community.