JMU journalism students face trespassing charges

But that's what the reporter's saying, right? I'm kinda playing devil's advocate here. It would have been nice to get a quote from the RA saying "yeah, she had a resident with her but I didn't want her here" or "we were told by the school to lock down the dorm." Even a "declined to comment" or "could not be reached for comment" would be good.

 

I think that with the sources in question being reporters, even though they're "student" reporters, that has to be taken into account when determining their credibility and the level of trust you're willing to place in their recounting of the event. The paper's editor-in-chief, while speaking on the record with another news organization, contends that another newspaper employee, a resident of the dorm, accompanied him into the building. I'm going to choose to believe it.

As far as getting a comment from the RA, sure, that would be great. But the RA in question is likely just a student, who probably isn't allowed to comment publicly on the situation anyway, and a student who in my opinion carries less credibility than the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.

At any rate, we are talking about the university making a mountain out of a molehill here. It's an embarrassing situation. Sure, technically it matters which side of the dorm door the reporters were on if they in fact did not have a resident with them, but levying judicial charges for student journalists trying to report on an on-campus crime is a shitful response from the university.

 

If you're getting into the legalities of being escorted into the building, you'd probably have to read the agreement as most of those policies do have something in them about not allowing people in for soliciting purposes or the responsibilities of guests to not disturb other residents. More detail is needed there.

As far as trespassing, they probably did the right thing. The RA wouldn't have the power to throw them out, so you wait until you find someone with that authority... and if you have been invited by someone who has permission to invite people, then all bets are off.