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A four-part blog:
Emma’s story Part 1 of 4
One student journalist attempts to reach a larger audience
One student journalist attempts to reach a larger audience
by Candace Bowen, MJE
My original blog idea started as a simple little suggestion to encourage high school student journalists to cover school board meetings and educational topics in communities without commercial media – those rural and urban areas considered news deserts. But it’s grown much bigger than that. These will be the weekly installments to – follow the story
Student journalists’ role in reporting on education grows where there are News Deserts
Part 1: We’ll explore what happened when a student reporter offered a story about her school to a local “news and digital marketing platform.” It was posted – and then….
Part 2: What do those involved with student media legal issues say about aa597this? We’ll talk to the Student Press Law Center about what rights such young journalists have.
Part 3: How do the hyperlocal web outlets see their role when working with students – or do they see that as a possibility at all?
Part 4: Are there ways we – advisers and journalism teachers – can help students and communities get vital information, especially about local education? How can we educate those who might be working with student journalists but have no background in scholastic media and student rights and responsibilities?
by Candace Bowen, MJE
It was spring 2023, right after yet another school shooting, when junior Emma Levine decided those in her New Jersey community needed to hear local student voices about this issue.
She reached out to TAPinto, “a network of local news and digital marketing platforms,” opening in towns that have no local newspaper or news website. The franchise currently has nearly 100 such outlets across the nation, many in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Emma didn’t work on her student newspaper, though she had taken journalism and hopes to have that as her college major in another year.
“The whole idea behind what I wanted to write was to reach more people, to be a student voice.” She said she hoped to show how her school was reacting to school shootings. To do that, she interviewed a student, a teacher and the school’s principal at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in New Jersey.
All three of her interviewees knew her purpose and her plan to have this published in TAPinto so community members would know what the school was doing. She carefully double checked her facts with all three. “I wanted to be sure it was correct,” she said, and she did make one minor change.
The article was posted on a Wednesday, and, by Friday, Emma heard from her editor. She said “it had to be taken down.” According to Levine, “The school’s communications officer insisted the three interviewed had no idea this was to be published.” So the TAPinto editor removed the story.
The editor wanted to know “what else I could write” because Emma was considered an unpaid intern. But Levine said she was “super determined to get it back up, even if that meant making some changes.” She tried talking to the superintendent, communications officer and principal, but none of that happened until June.
“I thought it was important to get the piece out there,” Levine said, but the communications officer said the superintendent had “grave concerns” about what was posted in the article. Because Levine was working for “an outside entity,” she should have gone through the communications officer to get to talk to the principal. And, no, even taking things out wasn’t a solution.
Levine said she “took that hit and moved on,” writing two more articles for TAPinto during the summer. The principal later approached her about being “the student voice as part of an internship for credit through the school.” She said she told him that was “great idea” but she didn’t want credit for this. She never heard more about that proposal.
Levine does encourage other students to try to write for their local news outlets. She said she learned a lot about how the (news) process works.
Emma said, overall, she learned some “big takeaways,” including that “education is about putting out fires.” She was not being supported as an opportunity-seeking student. Her hardest takeaway, however, was that a lot of education is about “putting out fires.”
“My principal wasn’t going to bat for me – but my journalism teacher was,” Levine said.
Localizing Book Banning, 2023 Constitution Day Activity
Created by Scholastic Press Rights Director Kristin Taylor, CJE
Focus: One of the key skills of a good reporter is the ability to localize national news. This activity can be used on Constitution Day as part of a larger discussion of students’ access to information or another time as practice localizing news.
The topic: Rising instances of book bans across the United States.
Research: Remind students that the first step in localizing a national story is to do their research. You can either give them time in class or assign the research as homework. Here are some sources for initial research:
- Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools (PEN America)
- Banned & Challenged Books (American Library Association)
- Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S. (NY Times)
- Censorship or Protection? A Debate on Book Banning in Schools (Divided We Fall; offers multiple perspectives)
- Plot twist: Activists skirt book bans with guerrilla giveaways and pop-up libraries (NPR)
- Research your state for laws related to book banning — some states even have conflicts between state laws and city ordinances (for example, this debate in California)
- Search your local paper to see if there are any articles related to bans in their states.
- Attend a Board of Education meeting about books or the curriculum
Discussion: Have students discuss their findings, separating facts from opinions in the various sources and what they learned about their own state’s laws or local news connected to book bans.
Localization: From here, students should brainstorm possible approaches to a localized version of the story. How are book bans impacting your school or community? Have any books been added or removed from your school or town library? Has the school curriculum changed or been adjusted because of pressure from the community?
Students should engage in the normal reporting process, collecting data through surveys, seeking expert sources (librarians, curriculum specialists, town and state officials) and weaving their national research into their local reporting for a feature article or broadcast. Whether they map out a plan for an article as practice or actually create it for publication is up to adviser/editor discretion.
Read MoreAi, Fair Use and the First Amendment
by Mark Dzula
Description
Writers are on strike in Hats against AI companies, and consider what’s at stake in each situation.
- Students will consider the four factors of fair use to determine if companies are on solid legal footing when they make this claim when they utilize large data sets to train AI bots.
- Students will research and weigh the role of precedent to predict how the courts may rule in these cases, including work with primary source documents.
- Students will propose guidelines that safeguard the First Amendment and protect the rights of content creators in the face of rapidly developing AI.
Length
One eighty-minute block, with HW
Materials / resources
- ChatGPT maker OpenAI faces a lawsuit over how it used people’s data. Report in the Washington Post
- Sarah Silverman Sues OpenAI and Meta Over Copyright Infringement. Report in the New York Times
- With Warhol, It’s Time to Transform Transformative Use, opinion piece in Copyright Lately
- Copyright Fair Use Examples, from JDSUPRA
- Four Factors of Fair Use
- Transformation or Derivation: Modern Trends in the Fair Use Doctrine from Software to Photography, from IPWatchdog
Day 1 step-by-step
- Opening activity: Determining transformative use. Teacher flashes examples from Copyright Fair Use Examples on the board, asking ‘was this a case of fair use?’
- After brief discussion, pull up the four factors of fair use, discuss each aspect. Consider grouping into four groups, one for each factor. Groups discuss, then share out their understanding of each factor. Using precedent from the cases presented in the opening activity, determine more nuanced and specific understanding of the limits of fair use.
- In-class reading (choose one):
- Reading Response: How might our understanding of the four factors of fair use be impacted by the reading materials, especially given the capacity of AI to consume large data sets for training and to rely on human-generated content (copyrighted or not). How might the rights of citizens and creative workers be respected?
- HW: Write 2 page double-spaced opinion piece on AI, copyright, fair use, and the First Amendment. What should companies do as they pursue AI? What should creators expect? How might they safeguard their material? What should citizens keep in mind as they allow companies access to their data? Compelling essays will provide examples (cases, precedent, etc) and consider prospective counter arguments.
Teacher notes:
A lesson or previous practice with persuasive writing in legal settings may also help students feel prepared to execute the lesson well.
This lesson could be extended by requiring the students to go much further in-depth with their research. Another class could be devoted to a mock hearing, with role play with students acting as judges (and assuming their POVs) and well as litigants (assuming their POVs) in the cases described in the reading materials.
Read MoreLitigating social media platforms: editorial judgment and the First Amendment
by Mark Dzula
Description
Currently, there are major legal battles over who has the right to regulate content on social media. Should companies make decisions about what to publish or have the ability to limit what goes out on their platforms? Or should government have the ability to determine which companies are protected by the First Amendment and to what extent?
A key distinction in these cases is the difference between a newspaper/publication (which is beholden to a certain set of laws) and a social media platform. In which ways are these entities similar? In which key ways are they different? Based on these differences, how should laws and the First Amendment apply?
Bringing help to news deserts: Lesson Plan
Description
The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at University of North Carolina first reported on the “news desert” phenomenon in 2016. And the picture only became more dire. Today, the Center’s definition is “a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.”
Think about it: If voters don’t know what’s going on in government, how can they make informed decisions in the voting booth? How can they choose the right leaders if all they hear is hype from one side or even conflicting information from several sides? As far as schools go, how can they decide who should be on the school board, the group that makes important decisions about curriculum, administrators and policies that impact everyone?
In a news desert that doesn’t have trained journalists seeking truth and expert opinions about education in its community, students can help fill that void. What can students do to ensure factual and useful information gets to voters before they go to the polls? How can they help their families and neighbors and still learn a lot as they do so?
That’s where this lesson plan can get the process started.
Objectives
- Students will acknowledge that local news media are missing important stories about education in their community.
- Students will recognize how information about certain topics make a difference in how voters will react.
- Students will be practice news coverage that is well-sourced and fairly balanced.
- Students will set up a plan to start filling the holes in educational news coverage in their communities.
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.8 | Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid, and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.7 | Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4 | Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper). |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.6 | Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. |
Length
Two or more class periods – to introduce and set up the possibilities. (Four days between to give students time to use the graphic organizers for their “research.”
Materials / resources
- Do you live in a news desert? A report from Penelope Muse Abernathy, Knight Chari in Journalism and Digital Media Economics
- News Deserts in Education Graphic Organizer for looking for media coverage of education to use for the assignment below.
- Potential Stories Graphic Organizer to brainstorm for education/school stories the staff could dover.
- More complete Graphic Organizer from U.S. News Deserts to keep track of all coverage.
Day 1 step-by-step
- Bell-ringer: Ask students to write on a slip of paper where they and their family get their news. Tell them to be specific – which websites, newspapers, magazines, television, social media, friends, etc.
- Then zero in by asking them where they get their information about what’s going on in their school district? What kinds of stories do they see or hear about local schools and education? (NOTE: If students consume little media, give them time to hunt for local stories online and see what they can find. You might start by listing some possible categories: school board decisions, school board meetings, school district hiring/firing, curriculum content/books, topics, etc., activities in classes, sports scores and game coverage, sports coaching, sports equipment, building conditions/maintenance, extra-curricular activities — clubs, debate, student government etc.) Is that information important to voters? Is it available to them?
- If they are in an educational news desert, this may be difficult, so stop the process when students start complaining they are finding nothing. You’ve made your point.
- Share with them the definition of a news desert. (See pulled quote halfway down this page)
- Discuss if students think they are in a news desert, specifically about their local schools. Why or why not? List on the board the stories of things going on in their school district that community members should know about. Help students separate rumor from reportable information.
- On their own computers or one the teacher uses to project, look at the “Do you live in a news desert?” map and explanation. Also use the pull-down below it to look at your state. What are you learning?
- Distribute the two graphic organizers and discuss keeping track over the next four days what they find in local media about their schools and what they believe from being in the schools SHOULD be reported.
Five days later step by step
- First discuss the findings of education coverage in your community. How extensive is it? What stories are being told? Who is telling them? Do they seem accurate and thorough?
- Then discuss what is missing. Make a list on the board of the stories students think the community should know and why they should know this.
- When most stories are listed, then go back and fill in who could/should be sources for reporters trying to tell these stories.
- Finally – and this might take several days to work through – what ways could this class/staff get the important information out to the community? Things go consider:
- Who would do the reporting? Whom would they interview?
- What media outlets could they use?
- Student news website?
- Student print media?
- Instagram?
- Twitter?
- Facebook?
- Any other potential outlets?
- How would be promote this and let the community know it is for them?
- What are the pros and cons of trying to do this?
Teacher notes:
Clearly, this is an ongoing commitment. Students would have to see the value and what would be gained by doing this. And they can’t turn into local community reporters overnight. But even if just two or three important stories get out that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, it’s a way to help the community, the students, the faculty, and, in essence, democracy.
Read More