People and issues in a world of journalism
After spending four days at the Poynter Institute In St. Petersburg, Florida, I have a number of journalism issues on my mind:
• AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division’s vice head David Bulla publishes a blog called The First Amendment. It presents a wide variety of issues and topics and is worthy of a visit and your time. The whole idea, Bulla says, is “to share news and ideas in a simple, easy-to-read, non-academic format among those of us who care about the First Amendment and student press rights.”
• Check out teaching issues and practices raised by University of Florida Knight Chair for Journalism Technologies and the Democratic Process Mindy McAdams at this site. Information on McAdams’ Web site covers the use of multimedia in reporting to and how to adjust journalism curricula to effectively include it.
• For information on a conference sponsored by several groups, go to the SPLC’s Campus Coverage Web site. The conference also produced interviews on iTunes with top reporters. Although material is aimed at collegiate reporters, it is certainly adaptable at the high school level.
Check out these links to expand your journalistic vision.
Also, watch this space in the coming months for new initiatives and information about scholastic press rights and responsibility from JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission.
Read MoreScholastic Press Student Partners
It’s a new year — heck, a new decade — so what better time to announce a new way to support scholastic press rights. JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission (SPRC) is excited to introduce a group called Scholastic Press Student Partners.
Another group? Surely you’ve got questions. We’ve got answers:
Q: What will Student Partners do?
A: This small group of high school students will have an opportunity to serve in a variety of capacities, including meeting both online and at JEA national conventions, answering press rights questions at a booth in the convention exhibit hall, planning new student programs to increase First Amendment awareness, building a network of students via Facebook and Twitter, planning and/or hosting press rights events at local and state conventions … and more. Student Partners will be asked to serve two-year terms and encouraged to attend a national convention each year.
Q: Who is eligible?
A: Students in grades 9-11 who are part of a high school media staff and whose advisers are current JEA members are eligible to apply.
Q: How will these students be selected?
A: Members of the JEA SPRC will select based on applications submitted by the Jan. 30 deadline. The application asks candidates to provide information about their experience in scholastic journalism and why they want to be involved.
Q: What is the high school adviser’s role?
A: Encourage students who are interested to submit applications. Don’t worry — that’s it. This is not an activity you would be required to oversee. During the selection process, someone from the SPRC might contact you for additional feedback about your student.
Q: How can students apply?
A: Here is the application (a Google Form). Deadline: Jan. 30, 2010.
Q: When and how will students be notified?
A: Students selected as Partners will be notified in early February. Student Partners will meet online in February and, if possible, in person at the Portland convention. Share the link with your students and encourage them to apply.
Still have questions? Let us know.
Sarah Nichols, MJE
Read MoreCarrying on the fight: how to begin
Friends of the Spoke is an amazing resource.
The students launched it as an informational site about the proposed policy changes. They interviewed and posted that information. They sought community letters to the board in support of the Spoke.
And others can use it, as well as some of the tactics mentioned earlier to model their own approaches.
Go there and you will find:
• Information about student and publication awards.
• History of proposed changes to Spoke policies and links to coverage.
• Special reports containing sensitive and important stories students felt caused the drive to change policies.
• Contact and background information for the Spoke and student journalists.
There is also a link to an updated Spoke site, a blog, where students wrote the site was re-designed to recognize their new role. “After the district changed its proposal that would have led to censorship of the Spoke, the organization is now focused on defend the The Spoke by keeping the community informed of the latest news at the papers, and making our resources available to student journalists nationwide who are facing censorship.”
Even after winning the fight, the students continue their vigilance.
For those facing censoring, the decision to fight might not be an easy one. But it has to do done.
It has been done before – and succeeded.
As has been said, the price of liberty calls for eternal vigilance. There is no lesser way.
As Henry Rome said, the fight is long and the future is important.
Read MoreFighting the fight is a student-driven process: Part 2
Even though a fight against censorship is rooted in emotion, that emotion cannot direct the fight, 2009 JEA High School Journalist of the Year Henry Rome said.
Neither should the adviser.
Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said the adviser’s role is to prepare students ahead of time why press freedoms are important and reinforce it at every opportunity.
“The adviser can’t be the public face of a censorship case,” he said, “because at the end of the day, she must maintain her loyalty to the school.”
Behind the scenes, though, the adviser can – and should – educate administrators about why censorship is a bad strategy as practical management.
“It breeds greater disrespect for authority,” LoMonte said. “It tarnishes the image of the school much more than letting a negative story run uncensored. The adviser can, and should, find ways to call the principal’s and community’s attention to the positive things journalism does.”
But waging the fight is a student responsibility, LoMonte said and the student editors here did everything right.
“First and foremost,” he said, “their journalism was unassailable. Unfortunately, students are held to standards that often are higher than those of the top professional media entities, so that a misspelled word or a correction is enough for a school to pretextually censor their work. This work was bulletproof.”
Second, he said, students cannot, although it is an emotional fight students should not run around shouting “First Amendment.”
“That argument carries no weight with schools and very little weight with the public at large,” LoMonte said. “You must make the argument about the practical effects of attempting to censor student journalism. Seth and Henry convincingly made the case that, if the proposed prior-review policies were enacted, they would have felt fearful of pursuing the award-winning stories that had brought so much credit to the district.”
LoMonte said the number one recommendation to students is to build alliances before they are needed. Those alliances could include a media alumni association, a parent booster club, contacts with the local media. He also said join scholastic media organizations and enter as many competitions as possible. Send all contacts copies of student media.
“You need to anticipate the people arguing in favor of censorship,” LoMonte said, “will argue myths and misperceptions, not facts.”
How to counter that:
• Go into conversations asking questions with making arguments.”For instance,” LoMonte said, “when you get the argument prior review is necessary to avid the school being sued for libel, you could argue back. But it might be more effective to ask questions.”
• Talk about the strengths of the journalism program and how students have learned, and how others recognize this learning through awards and accolades.
• Bring the censorship into the public arena
Spoke students did all those things.
“They used the political process expertly by drawing on alliances with the professional media, parents, and the alumni community, to the point that they managed to put censorship of The Spoke on the radar as a contested school board campaign issue,” LoMonte said. “Just as importantly, they stayed on top of every move their school board made. Too often, harshly punitive policies are sneaked past the students and then are nearly impossible to reverse. These students vigilantly read every draft and attended every committee meeting, developing credibility that allowed them to speak to the school board with authority.”
In short, Rome said, Spoke students worked on a three-prong approach: engaging the district in conversations, reaching out to the community and working with local and national media to explain their story.
Next: Starting the new year off right
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A new way to look at a new year
Let’s start the new year with with some positive thoughts. A model of sorts should your and your students ever face the prospect of prior review or censorship. Some advice to heed from students who faced it.
And won.
In this series of blogs, we will outline concepts other student journalists and advisers can consider if they, too, face such a fight.
Henry Rome, JEA’s 2009 High School Journalist of the Year, and Seth Zweifler, current EIC of the Spoke of Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania fought back last year when administrators threatened prior review because of articles the staff had published during the year. Their fight can be documented on the students’ site, in Stoganews.com coverage and through the SPLC.
What helped them fight through this, Rome said, was knowing they were right and working with others who supported them, and looking to the future.
“In the end,” Rome said, “the younger reporters and editors I have gotten to know so well deserve the same opportunities I’ve had to write and report. That is simply the bottom line. Student journalists deserve to be able to spend months upon months investigating stories and controversial issues. Student journalists deserve to learn how to manage a large group of people toward a common goal. Student journalists deserve the opportunity to serve their school. Indeed, they deserve the opportunity to serve their democracy.”
One thing Rome stressed was that the community reminded them of a fundamental point: The community deserves to be informed and censorship or review would compromise that information.
“The Spoke is not a public relations tool of the school district, and the community has a tremendous respect for our role in tackling difficult issues,” Rome said. “In the end, we realized that we were not just fighting to allow future staffs to write and report. We were fighting for the right of the community to be informed. And it is only through an informed populous that you can have a true democracy.”
To help maintain this flow of information and to keep your efforts in fighting for press freedom, Rome stressed the importance of the Web site, but also the following:
• First, know why you are fighting. Talk with your parents, friends in government. Alumni of the staff and of the school.
• Understand the fight will be long and draining. Team with others who know why the fight is important. The Student Press Law Center. Area press and/or university officials.
• Know this is a fight you simply have to wage.
• Fight to report the truth of events in your media.
• Know your stuff before you go face-to-face with the district or the media. Be prepared. Anticipate responses.
“Get as much input as you can,” Rome said, “and you’ll find that folks, whether they have a background in student journalism or not, strongly and passionately understand its value in society.”
Rome said before they began talking with district officials students armed themselves with the facts. Because they had reported on and investigated real issues in a professional way, they recognized the critical importance how to stand up for their rights.
“Just like in a news story, you’re nowhere without your facts,” Rome said. “I think that’s something special about journalists that enabled us to wage our campaign.
Just as flowery or sensational language doesn’t make a good article, it won’t make a good argument either. Know your facts and make forceful and reasoned arguments.”
Where a traditional fight against censorship isn’t working, Rome said, fight for your paper and for your community.
“Fight for this year, fight for next,” Rome said. “Fight for all those younger students excited about joining the paper. Fight for every student and parent in the district who deserve to be informed.”
Rome said that kept him going when things got tough was one from Ambrose Redmoon: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
“We feel like we did what we had to do,” Rome said, “what we thought was right. And that’s all that you can do.”
Next: More on setting up the fight and why it is not the adviser’s fight.
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