Where have the leaders gone?
Judging newspaper entries this spring, I noticed a distinct lack of unsigned staff editorials. In some cases this seemed to be mirrored by a lack of depth or extended feature reporting.
If there were editorials, a significant number were not calls to action or statements of leadership on events or issues.
In other words, the leadership function seemed to be either distinctly limited or completely lacking.
Leadership can come from reporting or through editorial statements. When either seems to be missing, we have to ask why:
• Is it censorship or fear of censorship that limits substantive or thorough reporting and editorials?
• Is it because columns offer more “name” recognition? Are news and substantive reporting not in vogue?
• Is it the belief editorials are passé and have no real power to sway, that depth and extended reporting is not popular in a culture of affirmation?
• Is it inexperienced advisers who don’t fully understand the leadership role of student media?
• Is it some other reason?
• Is it worth our concern?
I hope someone can shed some light on what seems to be a lack of editorials and a lack of issues reporting.
In 1947 the Hutchins Commission report called for more investigative reporting (remember studying the media’s performance in the early McCarthy era) and more social responsibility, reporting that went beyond the surface.
Some journalists refer to reporting beyond the surface as the candle theory of journalism — bringing light. Surface reporting exhibited in the McCarthy era might be termed the mirror theory of journalism — reporting what we see in front of us.
Perhaps we need to find out why editorials and the resulting editorial leadership seem to be missing, why reporting beyond surface events seems to be absent or at least on the decline.
It might be time to reinvigorate the Hutchins movement and apply it to scholastic media. It’s a time of change in media as print seemingly fades and digital media explodes, especially at the scholastic levels. (See Part 2 for a look at the models we might be creating)
After all, even mirrors require some light to be effectively useful.
Read MoreTo question…
To question
Part of the great thing about being an American citizen is that we get to ask questions without fear of retribution, or do we?
I have often wondered why some administrators get so upset with student questions in newspapers or teacher questions in faculty meetings or parents questions at school board meetings.
As a newly seated school board member, I am learning that sometimes, people who get upset with questions (be they from the public, or students or teachers or anyone for that matter) are usually not willing to come to the table to discuss issues. Perhaps this is a fight or flight response.
As we think about the recent censorship issues that have plagued students and our colleagues around the country, we need to think about how we can facilitate coming to the table so that people can ask questions without fear of retribution.
How can I as an American citizen ( school board member, former teacher and publications adviser, K-12 principal, college professor) promote listening to facilitate conversation that solves problems at the lowest level? I think it starts by asking questions myself and not allowing people to push my questions aside or allowing people to push questions aside questions that people are asking just because the questions seem uncomfortable. We only grow by asking the uncomfortable questions and looking for the answers. When we find answers we do not like, we cannot just whisk them away and make the problems disappear. The problems do not disappear, they just fester and explode at a later date.
Fear of truth is the real root of censorship. When something uncomfortable is asked by a teen, one who has no power in a school setting, those in power explode with unreasonable restrictions instead of guiding the students to find the truth. We cannot be afraid of truth. We must embrace truth.
I would challenge administrators and teachers and school board members and parents not to be afraid of teens who ask questions. Take the risk of thinking about the questions and really working with teens to find truthful answers. That is education.
Read MoreJust the facts, ma’am
Twenty-nine days and counting.
Some will look toward the culmination of that period positively. Others do so with dread.
April 1. April Fools.
JEA listservians carried out a lively discussion today on the merits and demerits of publishing an April Fools edition. SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte even said to keep his center’s phone number and e-mail address handy if students published such an issue.
Tough decision.
But, I think there are two core reasons for not publishing an April Fools issue:
• The information is known to be false. We spend the rest of the school year developing our credibility over controversy and defending students’ rights and obligation to print the truth. Then in one day we throw caution to the wind and go with information that is not only untrue but even could be taken to be misleading.
• We give others the right to know what is coming. Prior review. Prior approval. We do this, in some cases, with the best of intentions, so sources will not be caught unaware, and to make sure information is not too far out of line. We might even mix the untrue with the true, hoping our audiences can tell the difference. This scares me. We, including those of us carrying out JEA’s official position, argue and rant daily about the educational dangers of prior review. So in this case we want to say, here, check it out ahead of time? What will we say to those, now used to prior review, when they ask for it on something of substance?
Twenty-nine days.
A long period of time to think about the plusses and minuses.
No joke.
Read MoreJust this once
In the 1970s, the American Library Association released a film for use in schools called The Speaker. The film dealt with multi-level decision making concerning free speech.
One line sticks in my mind: Just this once.
As in “what’s wrong if just this once we stop someone from speaking.”
Over the years, this translated into the realm of prior review: so what if just this once the principal prior reviews student media. Who is harmed? What is lost? How will it hurt? Who will care?
And, after all this time, journalism advisers and teachers do not have an common answer for the issues surrounding prior review.
For some, prior review gets teachers off the hook. It is a safety cushion where someone else takes the responsibility for decisions made.
For some, tolerating it or embracing it means a job. In this economy one almost cannot blame them.
For some, prior review means following commercial media when the publisher sometimes can say yay or nay to content.
For these and other reasons the scholastic journalism community has, for far too long, been unwilling to really confront this elephant in the room of journalistic learning.
Now, though, we are seeing more and more fruits of allowing just this once as it applies to prior review:
• Solid programs with solid advisers are falling to the spread of prior review. The latest is in Minnesota.
• Prior restraint, not a safer school or real educational growth, is the product of prior review.
• Administrators are starting to ask for proof that schools exist without prior review. Why? Because they just don’t believe schools exist with review since that is what administrative consulting groups and school lawyers tell them. The latest instance of this comes from Colorado.
• Several administrative consulting groups across the nation, even though they don’t say they do, endorse in open or subtle ways administrative control of student media. Prior review. For self-protection. Because it is the safe thing to do.
Because the spread of prior review by those outside the staffs of student media is so extensive, so pervasive, we as journalism educators must do more than condemn this issue. We must raise challenges that ask:
• What are workable alternatives to prior review? And then create and distribute them.
• How do we show the practice has no educational value and in fact harms student educational growth? And model our beliefs.
• How do we show that truthful, accurate and complete reporting by student media cannot take place in an atmosphere of prior review? And showcase the solid programs where such reporting thrives.
• Does the risk of just this once dropping prior review outweigh administrative fears of students running amuck? And publicize the excellence of students, who without prior review consistently show their learning works.
Our goals should thus include:
• Clear demonstration, through the use of nationwide examples, that free and responsible student media means student decision making without prior review. Not responsible to mother school but to the idea of truth and serving the school’s various publics.
• Clear documentation that schools do prosper without prior review and that their numbers are substantial. We need to let each other know when our programs are public forums by policy or practice, and we need to do so proudly so those numbers make on impact on those who claim otherwise.
• Clear modeling to administrators that their best way to monitor student media is to hire qualified and caring advisers and teachers who empower students to grow by practicing what they are taught.
It is time to actively implement our beliefs, to remind those who support prior review they are wrong.
Just this once – before it is too late.
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