Why Would a 'Craigslist Killer' Be a PR Nightmare for a School?

Two interesting things happened when Philip Markoff was arrested last week for the so-called Craigslist killing of a masseuse in a Boston hotel. The first was that the public became more intrigued by the online classifieds website that had been used by the victim for advertising her massages.

The second was that Boston University, the school that Markoff had attended as a second-year medical student, was thrust into the national spotlight and quickly tried to shimmy off the stage. Since the national media has pressed into Markoff's case by asking friends, family and teachers what he's like, BU has passed a gag order around campus, threatened student reporters that they will be removed from school grounds, and stashed copies of the student newspaper in a back room of the admissions office.

The reaction is confusing. There is no clear connection between a hotel homicide and a school's credibility. As noted in an editorial in the student paper, The Daily Free Press, applications to Virginia Tech increased dramatically following the massacre of 32 students by a deranged gunman in 2007.

Yet BU's evasive tactics, reported in the Free Press, may draw more unflattering attention. In the admissions hall where high school kids meet for campus tours, for example, copies of the independent paper are usually laying around for prospective students and their parents to take. But since Markoff's arrest and subsequent suspension led to big headlines on the front page, the stacks of papers have been hidden in a private room and are available only on specific request.

This semi-censorship has happened before. When I was the editor of the Free Press in 2007, we ran a story about how two BU students in London claimed that an administrator tried to quash their story about being bitten by bedbugs. When I went to the admissions office to see if the issues were available, I had to specifically ask for a copy of the paper and state that I was a current BU student. A tour guide told me that because the news portrayed BU negatively, the office didn't want prospective students to be turned off.

Similarly, an office employee told the Free Press last week that the papers had been removed "because of their content, which could reflect negatively on the school."

At the medical campus where Markoff was studying, the dean, Karen Antman, issued an initial three-sentence statement with no information other than that the suspect was suspended and that all questions should be directed to Boston police. The dean of students declined to be quoted and only said, "You should talk to Dean Antman at the medical campus." When the Free Press called her office, it was redirected to a corporate communications center, where a spokesman declined to give any further information.

The dean also sent an email to medical students warning them not to talk about Markoff's case. As a result, most information on the suspect's character – in the student paper, The Boston Globe and other national media – has been either non-descript or only from students and professors afraid to give their names.

Karla Gower, a public relations professor at the University of Alabama, said that BU's message-control team is within its rights to suppress information leaks because it is a private university.

"But on the other hand," she told me, "when you talk about transparency and openness, you can't expect people not to talk. And gagging people tends to backfire, and more people talk. It sort of raises the question: Well, why do you need to do that? Is there something to protect? Is there something more going on?"

In the case of the Virginia Tech massacre, for example, Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 students on campus, prompting university police to step in and raising questions about the school's emergency preparedness. The murders then became a campus issue with national attention.

But in Boston, even though the Craigslist killing happened in a nearby hotel, there is no other link to BU other than the fact that the arrested suspect, Markoff, was a medical student there. Even though administrators' "natural reaction" might be to clamp down on the story, Gower said, that may be impossible at a school the size of a small city.

"I wouldn't recommend it in this day and age, especially with social media, when news travels so quickly," she said (a Facebook group in Markoff's defense has already been created). "You can't put a lid on anything anymore. I think probably taking this heavy-handed approach is a little inappropriate. But there's also sort of a tendency, even among large corporations, to do it. They want to control the message and information, and you can't just do it anymore. You have to give up some control."