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Herman wrote the sharper story, quoting Linzer more fully. “No evidence to point to any likelihood” sounds like a cute way of saying there’s evidence, but not enough of it to drag this matter on. Of the quotes in question, the money quote had Lavine claiming that an unnamed junior had said about a marketing class, “I sure felt good about this class. It is one of the best I’ve taken.” David Spett, a suspicious Daily Northwestern columnist, said he talked to every student in the class, including all five juniors, and all denied making that statement. Northwestern professor David Protess and Tribune columnist Eric Zorn later said that they’d reinterviewed the five juniors, with the same results. That’s evidence.
The Tribune story didn’t even identify the members of the panel. Herman’s did. They were Jack Fuller, former editor and publisher of the Tribune, and Northwestern trustees Teresa Norton and Paul Sagan, who is also cochair of the Medill Board of Advisors. A Boston businessman, Sagan is the son of Chicago publisher Bruce Sagan, a close friend of Lavine’s.
