Let the education start here
The Feb. 11 posting on CODEWORDS, the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee blog, calls for “massive public education” about what constitutes “real news” and why such content is necessary for “an effective democracy.”
Author Paul LaRocque points out the “period of change” media are now experiencing will not be over soon. But now is the time all major groups like SPJ, ASNE, APME and RTDNA should launch a campaign to educate the public about NEWS, real news. He says they must “show the public the difference between noise and information.”
Why not add all those other alphabet-soup scholastic media organizations to the list? JEA, NSPA, CSPA plus Quill and Scroll and the Center for Scholastic Journalism? Where better to start educating for understanding and appreciating news than in our schools? How better to do that than with student newspapers, newsmagazines, yearbooks, broadcast outlets and news Web sites that allow students to use their voices and experience democracy before they graduate?
SPJ, we want to sign up for the cause.
Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE
Read MoreHe called it ‘accidental plagiarism’
Gerald Posner’s resignation from The Daily Beast offers a good lesson about plagiarism. What happens when a journalist has LOTS and LOTS of notes and a tight deadline? Is it possible to forget which words are someone else’s and which are yours?
More details and links about this appear on “A lesson in ‘accidental plagiarism'” on the Center for Scholastic Journalism blog. It’s a teachable moment for sure.
Read MoreJust what are they teaching?
When members of the Churchill County Education Association in Fallon, Nev. thought an article in the high school student newspaper made a teacher look bad, their reaction wasn’t very educationally sound: They wanted administrators to censor the publication.
Lauren MacLean’s article in The Flash covered a controversy over audition tapes for the state honor choir and parental concern with the music teacher who, they claim, was to have sent them. Mark Goodman, Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism at Kent State, who wrote about this in the Center for Scholastic Journalism blog, has seen the article and reports, “It is student journalism at its best: fact-based, not inflammatory, insightful, relevant. It simply gives readers the facts and lets them reach their own conclusions.”
Jerry Ceppos, dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada and former executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, also expressed his concern. On the Web site for the Reno Gazette-Journal, Ceppos suggested the teachers’ union needed the colorful, two-story-tall banner now hanging in his school with the 45 words in the First Amendment sewn into it.
Luckily, no one censored anything. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, MacLean’s article was to run Friday. Its editorial concluded, “But in the little town of Fallon, a welcome spark of freedom now shines. Taking the more courageous and principled course, Mr. Lords (the principal) and Ms. Ross (the superintendent) — and young Lauren MacLean — did well.”
Should we be bothered that the superintendent told Ceppos both she and the principal read the article before publication? Maybe that’s material for another blog.
Read MoreHelp us know where open forums, censorship exist
In light of recent censorship situations around the country, especially Stevenson High in Illinois and Timberland High in Missouri, please help the JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission expand its outreach to those facing censorship issues.
We also want to celebrate student media operating as open forums for student expression.
• If your student media has faced or faces censorship, please let us know so JEA and other scholastic journalism groups might be able to offer advice or assist. Use this downloadable form to enable us to be more aware of issues your students face.
• If your student media is a designated open forum for student expression or is an open forum for student expression by practice, please let us know. Use this downloadable form so JEA and other scholastic journalism groups can recognize your accomplishments.
• If your student media prior review where someone other than students makes final decisions of content, please let us know. Use this downloadable form so JEA and other scholastic journalism groups can recognize your accomplishments.
Read MoreOpen forums for student expression? Let us recognize you
If you and your students attended the JEA/NSPA convention this past week in DC, you are aware of the courageous fight some teachers and advisers wage against censorship. In some cases they kept their student media operating as designated forums for student expression or as practicing forums for student expression.
Others still continue to fight the good fight. We would like to grow the recognition of such programs.
To achieve this, JEA, NSPA, CSPA and Quill & Scroll sponsor the First Amendment Press Freedom Award, and deadline for applying is Dec. 1. To find out more about the award and download an application go here.
If your student media are open forums by policy or practice, please apply. We would love to recognize more of you.
And, if you are forums for student expression, please let us know so we can list your student media as such on the Center for Scholastic Journalism’s Web site. Recognition forms can be downloaded there or from this blog.
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