Open 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.
Read MoreDC: Truly inspiring
After the past couple of months of news on this blog, it would be easy to be despondent.
Student work being censored for laughable reasons. Advisers having their authority usurped. Creativity being stifled.
As it always does, the JEA/NSPA national convention, has energized me. Sitting in the SPRC panel on Saturday, we had the good fortune to meet with a courageous group of students who are undergoing censorship, but who are seeking out the information and ammunition to fight these attempts to deprive them of their rights.
They came armed with information and questions, with emotion and with resolve. I’m hopeful the students who showed up and sought knowledge from those of us assembled were happy with what was provided. I also hope they continue to stay in touch with the SPRC and let us help them in their struggles.
Seeing Henry Rome and Seth Zweifler, from Conestoga, Pa., win award after award for their work administrators sought to quash was similarly energizing. As was hearing Al Leonard, a principal who gets it, speak to those assembled at the panel and hopefully provide the assembled students with hope that there are some principals who seek to nurture the First Amendment rather than strangle it.
It’s not easy to stand up to an administrator as a teacher. It’s tough to imagine what it’s like as a teenage journalist. Administrators are pretty well counting on the fact that students will not be aware of their rights and will cede to their authority.
But it fills me with hope for the cause this blog is here to promote – scholastic press rights – that these brave students are so willing and passionate to stand up and fight for what is right.
And the definition for ‘responsible’ is…
The JEAHELP list had a post last week that included a statement the Scholastic Press Rights Commission has been ready to address from more than a year. It came in a message from Gloria Olman, retired adviser and former Dow Jones Newspaper Fund High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.
Olman was trying to help a retired math teacher who had been advising an after-school paper. The district superintendent objected to several letters to the editor complaining about cafeteria food. Olman wrote that the adviser was upset because she had been told “if we continued to print negative letters, then we just won’t be allowed to print any letters at all. Period!”
When the adviser questioned students not being able to express their opinions, she was told it was an “informational paper”‘ only and further that she “needed to teach ‘responsible journalism.'”
Responsible journalism. How that superintendent defines it and how a knowledgeable journalism teacher defines it appear to be two totally different things. “Happy talk” and only good news isn’t responsible, not unless this school is somewhere over the rainbow with nothing bad ever happening. What IS wrong with the cafeteria food? What were the letter-writers concerned about? And what else could be wrong in a district with an administrator who doesn’t value free speech?
Even though the adviser was pretty sure the superintendent wouldn’t read anything long or complicated explaining the value of letters with all sorts of opinions, it might be good if she read the Press Rights Commission definition of “responsible journalism.“ It contains six principles that should be the basis for dialogue necessary to help everyone in a school get on the same page about student media:
- Establish policies to aid in thorough, accurate and effective reporting.
- Apply critical thinking and decision-making skills so students become more productive future citizens.
- Empower advisers using professionally oriented and substantive curriculum.
- Maintain open lines of communication between students, teachers, administrators and community members.
- Report accurately and thoroughly, using a range of diverse and qualified sources.
- Operate media that report information in verbal and visual context, enhancing comprehension and the greater good for all communities.
Would that allow for letters about cafeteria food? Yes. Does it describe a program where students learn and grow as journalists? Yes.
That sounds pretty responsible to me. Do you think this Michigan superintendent would agree?
Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE
Read MorePlenty to learn at the JEA/NSPA convention
Although this is a totally unscientific finding, it seems like the JEA/NSPA national high school journalism convention next week in Washington, D.C., has more to offer than ever before when it comes information about legal and ethical issues. Take a peek at what the program shows:
“Lifting the Lid on Open Records” and “Censor-proofing Your Publication” are topics Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, will cover. Learn about “Get Right with Copyright,” “Help, I’ve Been Censored” and “Advisers and the Law” from Adam Goldstein, Ethics and Excellence in Journalism attorney advocate, also with the SPLC.
“Open Forum on Press Rights” is a chance to discuss issues and problems at your school with a panel of JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission members. Besides leading this Q&A session, commission chair John Bowen will present “Law in the Digital Age” with Mark Goodman, Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism at Kent State and the former executive director of the SPLC. Bowen will discuss “The Importance of Sound Editorial Policies” with Carrie Faust, another press rights commission member, and Goodman also will explain “State Laws Protecting Press Freedom.” Other commission members are also presenting sessions.
The convention has lots of strands this time, and almost every one of them has some spin on law and ethics. In the strand for new advisers, provided by JEA’s mentoring program participants, are “Advising Students on First Amendment Rights” and “Teaching Accountability: Basic Media Ethics.” The Broadcast/Digital Media strand covers “Music and Copyright: To Use or Not to Use,” and the administrator strand includes “Why Freedom Works,” “Ethics: A Strategy for Press Freedom” and “Working with Administrators to Prevent Censorship.”
With all these learning sessions, teachers might feel a little more prepared to take the Certified Journalism Educator test sometime in the future. Just to be sure they know what they need, there’s “What You Need to know to be Certified: Legal & Ethical Issues” that I’ll offer Saturday morning.
And this isn’t even a complete list! You may want to learn about the latest way to create graphics or questions to ask to get great quotes from a source. That’s fine. But if you don’t have a solid legal and ethical foundation, your students’ pretty packages and hard-hitting words may not even get to their audiences.
Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE
Read MoreScary days are becoming weeks and months
The principal of Timberland High School in Wentzville, Missouri, recently censored student articles on tattoos. Thursday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted an article about the censorship. Quickly, reader comments mounted.
The principal indicated he thought everyone could grow from this.
We’re not sure what he has in mind as growth, but we’re certain school officials or some of those who commented have not mastered understanding citizen roles in a democracy. Or understanding how students learn.
Which creates another scary day in scholastic journalism.
The principal also said he “is responsible for judging content based on what’s appropriate for students in the school and whether it supports the mission of the school.”
School missions, though, usually have verbiage about building better citizens and encouraging civic involvement. And that is appropriate.
Sadly, by censoring, school officials do not accomplish the most crucial mission they say is important.
Read the Post-Dispatch article. Read the student article linked from it. Read the comments.
Then think about school missions again.
Read More