This argument is simply wrong. Take the search for Harvard's president, which resulted in the selection of Neil L. Rudenstine. The official spokesperson for the selection committee--which mostly consisted of the members of the Corporation--spoke not a single word to the public throughout the process. The Harvard community, including many faculty and administrators, relied entirely on The Crimson (and other newspapers) for information.

There are other examples. Several years ago, The Crimson reported that top officials of the Harvard Management Company had a personal stake in companies they invested in for the University. In the last few years, the paper has reported on inequality between men's and women's athletics, dubious behavior of admissions officials, the relationship between the University and its unions and hundreds of other stories of vital importance to the Harvard community. Other student papers have done their share as well.

Higher education in general, and Harvard in particular, claims to exists for the pursuit of truth. Some, like John Trumpbour, editor of How Harvard Rules: Reason in the Service of Empire (1989) believe that the University is a sort of bourgeois conspiracy to prop up the ruling class. Most of us would have a more sympathetic view of Harvard. And higher expectations.

But Trumpbour hits upon an essential truth, which tends to be obscured by lofty academic ideals, but is at the heart of the conflict between the press and the administration.

Like bureaucrats in any sizable institution, Harvard's administrators are faced with a daunting task of managing thousands of employees, accommodating students of all types, ensuring quality in teaching and watching out for the bottom line. Harvard is essentially an oligarchy, ruled with impunity by the president and the Corporation. If oligarchy seems at odds with the spirit of an academic community--well, it is. This contradiction rears its ugly head more often than we'd like.

An essential difference in philosophy underlies the confrontations at issue here. Journalists commit themselves to the idea that diffusion of knowledge is a great virtue. Though many in the public question newspapers' judgments on delicate issues, journalists adhere to this bottom line: if some error is inevitable, always err on the side of giving the people more information.

Bill Kovach, the legendary New York Times reporter and editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, (and now the curator of Harvard's Nieman Foundation) is among the best known and most forceful advocates of this point of view.

Kovach told me that, when he ran The Times' Washington bureau, government officials regularly urged him to kill stories they believed revealed too much. In a career that spanned three decades, Kovach agreed with this logic just once. "I have not seen many cases," Kovach says, "where people, given sufficient information, don't make the right choices."

Of course, just about everyone supports the idea of a free and vigorous press. But remember the case of Thomas Jefferson, who said he "should not hesitate for a moment" to defend the right of the press over government. In theory, Jefferson supported the press. After six years as president, however, he had a vastly different sentiment. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper," he wrote to a friend in 1807. "Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."

Despite my own prejudices, I don't blame Harvard's administrators for doing their jobs--which, unfortunately, doesn't always allow for complete openness. Sometimes the powerful are right to avoid the truth. Franklin D. Roosevelt '04, most think, was correct to order the Manhattan Project in secrecy. At Harvard, the same basic tools of management apply. In the end, values which are crucial to a healthy learning environment--openness, honesty, aggressive action in pedagogical crises--often suffer.

The bottom line is that sometimes Harvard administrators are doing their job by obscuring the truth. The Crimson, despite what people think, doesn't have any particular agenda, other than trying to represent the campus in an accurate and fair manner. This job is complicated, though, by the fact that administrators sometimes place the institution above its ideals.

What's the ultimate truth? That's for the reader to decide.

Joshua W. Shenk '93-94 is former executive editor of The Crimson.