On Oct. 25, The Lowell's advertisement staff received an e-mail from an organization claiming to support independent music artists.

According to the e-mail, the Web site featured in the ad was still under construction, and as such, The Lowell's ad staff could not verify the Web site's content. The Web site's true content did not go online until the newspaper was distributed on Nov. 13, with over 2,600 copies of The Lowell already in circulation. That afternoon, the white supremacist group then notified The San Francisco Chronicle and the local news station KTVU of the ad placement, stating it was part of their plan to place ads in various high school papers, as did happen to the Carmel High newspaper in Indiana. The newly uploaded racist content online came as a surprise to everyone, including The Lowell staff.

Given the misleading nature of the group's e-mail to our advertising staff and the bait-and-switch Web site maneuver, compounded by the fact that they contacted the local media, the white supremacist group clearly intended to use The Lowell for publicity under false pretenses.

Another unpleasant surprise for the staff followed - spotty media coverage from several professional news sources, including The San Francisco Chronicle. Rather than emphasizing that The Lowell had been tricked into advertising the racist Web site, the article greeted thousands of Chronicle readers with the headline "Student Newspaper Runs Supremacist Ad." The reporter does not explain until deep into the article that the staff received the ad under false pretenses. This propagated many online comments from misinformed readers accusing the Lowell staff and advisers of negligence.

The Chronicle article sparked a slew of rehashed articles from news sources in the Associated Press consortium. Many followed The Chronicle's lead in inaccurately reporting that the district had pulled the remaining copies of the issue. The Chronicle also made no attempt to the contact any member of The Lowell staff for comment.

One news source, KTVU, exhibited a responsibility for journalistic standards by coming to the school on the evening of Nov. 13 to interview students, parents and staff. We respect that they reported using direct sources, but there was no follow-up.

The Web site's content in no way represents The Lowell's opinion and publishing it was in no way intentional. The Lowell staff regrets to have published offensive material, however inadvertently. But, equally disappointing is the widespread misrepresentation of the incident.

The purpose of news journalism is to report information based on facts, without embellishment or bias. Yet the media coverage of this incident failed to uphold this tenet of journalism. The ad was a malicious attempt for publicity, and due to poor coverage, this came at the expense of The Lowell's reputation.