The exact same day as the story’s publication, the college introduced an investigation into Tessier-Lavigne’s investigation and the seven years of alleged scientific misconduct thorough in the Stanford Daily’s story.
“It was really astonishing,” Stanford Every day editor-in-chief Sam Catania claimed. “I cannot say I was expecting the board of trustees to act rapidly.” But the launch of the investigation, he explained, “just grew to become yet another information function for us.” Baker continued to address the tale, revealing probable graphic manipulation in further papers coauthored by Tessier-Lavigne. He also described on phone calls for the university president to step down and the enlargement of the group of people who would be investigating the allegations of scientific misconduct. (You can read through all of the Stanford Daily’s protection listed here.)
On Feb. 17, a few times right before the Polk Award winners were declared, Baker posted a different large tale revealing accusations that Tessier-Lavigne experienced falsified facts in a 2009 paper that determined a opportunity induce of mind degeneration in Alzheimer’s sufferers.
His 1 in-individual conversation with Tessier-Lavigne was temporary, Baker claimed. He approached the university president shortly following sending him an electronic mail requesting remark for the tale about allegedly falsified Alzheimer’s info. “I walked up to him. I just mentioned, ‘Hi,’ and he mentioned, “Oh sure, yes. I have been given your letter. I glimpse ahead to getting in contact. I’m in a hurry.’
“I started out to say one thing, and he closed his car door in the middle of my sentence,” Baker continued. “And of training course, he did not get back to us. His attorney did.”
Quickly right after the publication of the Alzheimer’s tale, Tessier-Lavigne sent a letter to Stanford school and workers attacking the scholar paper’s reporting, calling it “replete with falsehoods.”
Tessier-Lavigne’s letter solidified Baker’s conviction that his stories would under no circumstances have been released if the Stanford Daily weren’t an business functioning outside the regulate of the tutorial establishment. (The paper celebrates the 50th anniversary of its independence from the college this calendar year.) “The stakes are just also significant,” Baker mentioned. “The individual that we’re crafting about is actually in demand of all of us.”
Both of those the Stanford Each day reporter and editor-in-chief shy away from queries about the effects that their investigation could possibly have on Tessier-Lavigne’s tenure as the university’s president.
“We just want to report the information and we want to get it appropriate. Which is what is most critical to us,” Catania reported. “You know, whatsoever comes about, if at the conclude of the day, we had been reasonable, we had been correct, and we have been comprehensive. To me, that will be ‘mission accomplished’ on the aspect of the Every day.”
For his element, Baker claimed he just would like to get “to the bottom of exactly what happened.” He added, “I try not to consider far too substantially about what’s likely to transpire based on all of this. The issue that I have expended the most time imagining about is generating guaranteed we get it correct, and creating certain we get it as in depth as probable. I’m not in cost of generating the judgments other folks will come to their conclusions. So my only job listed here is just to hold heading and figure out what is truly there.”
