What should go into an editorial policy?
What should not? QT3
Editorial policies are the foundations for your journalism program. Often short, these statements address forum status, who makes final decisions of content and prior review.
Think of it this way: a strong policy is prescriptive. It says what students will do. A policy is like a constitution and sets the legal framework for student media.
We strongly discourage the inclusion of ethical guidelines or procedures and process in policy documents because ethics and staff manual procedures are suggestive. That means topics like byline suggestions, font choices and how to handle unnamed sources should not be same document as policy. Topics, procedures and details do not have the same purpose as policy.
These points and other decisions about mission statement, forum status and editorial policy should be part of a Foundations Package that protects journalistically responsible student expression and anchors staff manuals.
Question: What should go into an editorial policy? What should not?
Editorial policies are the foundations for your journalism program. Often short, these statements address forum status, who makes final decisions of content and prior review.
We recommend this wording as a basic policy statement: “[NAME OF STUDENT MEDIA] are designated public forums for student expression in which students make all final content decisions without prior review from school officials.”
Other models could include more material and wording to explain the value of student decision-making, historical or educational reasoning.
[pullquote]Quick Tips are small tidbits of information designed to address specific legal or ethical concerns advisers and media staffs may have or have raised. These include a possible guideline, stance, rationale and resources for more information. This is the third in the series[/pullquote]
A guideline is a stance on an ethical topic. A guideline is more open to change by student staff to staff.
Beyond that, SPRC suggested models could include editorial guidelines (although we recommend several as ethical process and procedures) like:
- Role of student media
- Ownership of student content
- Handling death
- Advertising decisions
- Handling letters/comments
- Policy consistently applied across all platforms
A procedure is a way to do something. These might include how students answer the phone in the room or how they check out a camera. Procedures are how students carry out the policy and implement ethical guidelines. All are part of the staff manual but are clearly separated from policy so their roles are clearly distinct.
Stance:
Think of it this way: a strong policy is prescriptive. It says what students will do. A policy is like a constitution and sets the legal framework for student media.
We strongly discourage the inclusion of ethical guidelines or procedures and process from policy documents because ethics and staff manual procedures are suggestive. That means topics like byline suggestions, font choices and how to handle unnamed sources should not be same document as policy. Topics, procedures and details do not have the same purpose as policy.
Resources: The foundations of journalism: policies, ethics and staff manuals
JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Related: These points and other decisions about mission statement, forum status and editorial policy should be part of a Foundations Package that protects journalistically responsible student expression.
Read MorePrior review v. prior restraint: Quick Tip2
In brief, the Journalism Education Association has found prior review has no educational value. Instead, JEA believes it is simply the first step toward censorship and fake news. Prior review also contributes to self-censorship and lack of trust between students, advisers and administrators. Prior review conflicts with JEA’s adviser code of ethics.
Prior review occurs when anyone not on the publication/media staff requires that he or she be allowed to read, view or approve student material before distribution, airing or publication.
Prior restraint occurs when someone not on the publication/media staff requires pre-distribution changes to or removal of student media content.
Prior review itself is a form of prior restraint. It inevitably leads the reviewer to censor and student journalists to self-censor in an effort to assure approval.
An officially designated adviser, when working with students and offering suggestions for improvement as part of the coaching and learning process, who reads or views student media before publication is not engaged in prior review.
Possible Guideline: Prior review and restraint
Question: What does prior review mean and how is it different from prior restraint?
Key points/action: In brief, the Journalism Education Association has found prior review has no educational value. Instead, JEA believes it is simply the first step toward censorship and fake news. Prior review also contributes to self-censorship and lack of trust between students, advisers and administrators. Prior review conflicts with JEA’s adviser code of ethics.
Stance: JEA would define prior review and restraint as follows:
• Prior review occurs when anyone not on the publication/media staff requires that he or she be allowed to read, view or approve student material before distribution, airing or publication.
[pullquote]Quick Tips are small tidbits of information designed to address specific legal or ethical concerns advisers and media staffs may have or have raised. These include a possible guideline, stance, rationale and resources for more information. This is the second in the series[/pullquote]
- Prior restraint occurs when someone not on the publication/media staff requires pre-distribution changes to or removal of student media content.
- Prior review itself is a form of prior restraint. It inevitably leads the reviewer to censor and student journalists to self-censor in an effort to assure approval.
- An officially designated adviser, when working with students and offering suggestions for improvement as part of the coaching and learning process, who reads or views student media before publication is not engaged in prior review.
When an adviser requires pre-distribution changes over the objections of student editors, his/her actions then become prior restraint
Reasoning/suggestions: Students learn more when they make all publication choices. Prior review and restraint do not teach students to produce higher quality journalism.
The only way to teach students to take responsibility for their decisions is to give them the responsibility to make those decisions freely. No administrator has ever shown any educational value in prior review.
Continued democracy depends on students understanding all voices have a right to be heard and assuring all viewpoints have a say in their communities.
Resources: Questions advisers should ask those who want to implement prior review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Prior Review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
SPRC Talking points blog
SPRC Talking points
Definitions of prior review, prior restraint
Lesson: Understanding the perils of prior review and restraint
Why we keep harping about prior review
Related: These points and other decisions about mission statement, forum status and editorial policy should be part of a Foundations Package that protects journalistically responsible student expression.
Introducing Tools of Truth package
focusing on preventing fake news
To introduce the SPRC’s new Tools of Truth package that examines approaches to cope with fake news, please go here for a sample lesson. The package consists of more than 20 lessons on dealing with fake news in four categories: censorship, satire, sloppy reporting and deceptive news.
This lesson on “How people interpret the news and why it matters” was developed by Maggie Cogar of Ashland University and JEA’s Ohio state director and is from the deceptive news category.
Cogar described the lesson as, “Why, and how, can two people be exposed to the exact same news story and interpret it differently? Why should this matter to journalists? People interpret the news differently depending on their cognitive schematic structure, or prior experiences. It’s important for journalists to understand this process so they can better understand how their
audiences are interpreting the content they produce, and so they can ultimately use that information to help shape their content.”
The entire package will become active by Aug. 30.
Read MoreHow people interpret the news
and why it matters
by Maggie Cogar
Title
How people interpret the news and why it matters
Description
Why, and how, can two people be exposed to the exact same news story and interpret it differently? Why should this matter to journalists? People interpret the news differently depending on their cognitive schematic structure, or prior experiences. It’s important for journalists to understand this process so they can better understand how their audiences are interpreting the content they produce, and so they can ultimately use that information to help shape their content.
Objectives
- Students will explore how people process and interpret the news they consume.
- Students will interpret a news story (by examining it multiple media forms) and compare/contrast their interpretation to that of their peers.
- Students will discuss what individual differences in media interpretation means for journalistic practice.
Common Core State Standards
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.1 | Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.2 | Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. |
| 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. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7 | Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. |
Length
50 minutes
Materials / resources
Slideshow: News Interpretation slideshow
Access to multiple forms of media (preferably print, tv, & online)
A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication by R.J. Harris (textbook suggested but not required)
New York Times: article on confirmation bias
New York Times article on: media, race and relationships
Lesson step-by-step
*Use News Interpretation slideshow to guide this lesson
Step 1 — Entrance Slip (5 minutes)
Students should complete the “motivating activity” on Slide 1 of the News Interpretation slideshow:
- Hold up an object (select something that might elicit both positive and negative responses … like a pencil. Some students may hate the sight because it reminds them of homework, while others who love to read and write might love the sight of a pencil, etc.)
- “What do you see?”
- Have students spend one-two minutes writing down anything they can think of in relation to the object (tell them to write adjectives for how the object makes them feel, as well as any memories or connections the object brings to mind)
- Discuss that each student will have a different reaction to that object based on their own personal experiences with it (diagram schemas/connections)
Step 2 — Lecture & Class Discussion (20 minutes)
Use the News Interpretation slideshow (se below) and notes provided to lecture on how people interpret the news using their own personal schematic structure. Suggestion: for the class discussion, do a think-pair-share in small groups before going to whole class discussion.
Step 3 — News Interpretation Activity (20 minutes)
Using a trending news story, have students create a Venn Diagram (use three circles — print, tv, online). Students should compare/contrast how the media outlets cover the same news story.
Focus points and questions to consider during this activity:
- How do headlines or points of emphasis in coverage differ?
- Are there any points in the story that could be misinterpreted?
- Are there any apparent biases in coverage?
- How would different people interpret how this story was covered?
Step 4 — Exit Slip (5 minutes)
In your own words, summarize why people can interpret the same news story differently.
Step 5 — Think About It (homework)
Before our next class, think about … ”which type of media do you think has the biggest cognitive effects on audience and why? (print, radio, broadcast, web)”
Read MoreThe most important meeting
by Lindsay Coppens, adviser of The Harbinger, Algonquin Regional High School, Northborough, MA
Keep them separated.
That was my mentality when I first starting advising my high school’s newspaper. By “them” I meant the administration and the student editors.
By separated I didn’t mean student reporters shouldn’t interview administration (they are often invaluable sources), but I do think this mentality harmed the journalistic process in the long run. In my mind, keeping them separated was a way to protect student independence. We’re a publication with a limited public forum and no prior review, and although the administrators were generally supportive and respectful of the process, I wanted them to keep their hands off!
I now know this approach was flawed.
[pullquote]Another important part of the adviser’s role is to facilitate communication between the editors and administrators and to help staff members learn effective modes of communication.[/pullquote]
Yes, an important part of the adviser’s role is to protect the scholastic press’s independence, but I’ve realized this separation-focused approach can be detrimental. An us-against-them mentality developed, and inevitably, because the paper is run by high school students who occasionally make mistakes, the principal would raise concerns about the publication’s product or process. These concerns would lead to meetings which often had an undercurrent of fear, anger and defensiveness. We would all feel stressed and at least a little afraid of the next call or email from the administration.
And then one day I woke up and realized at least some of this stress and fear could be my fault.
Another important part of the adviser’s role is to facilitate communication between the editors and administrators and to help staff members learn effective modes of communication.
I realized that publication life would be less stressful and student journalists would be more empowered if they met with the principal preemptively. We started a tradition of a back-to-school conversation with the overall goals of establishing respectful relationships, determining modes of effective communication, and gaining an understanding of mutual and differing goals.
This back-to-school meeting between the Editors-in-Chief, the school principal and myself usually lasts only about 45 minutes but it has drastically transformed our perceptions and understanding of each other.
Some of the talking points:
- The editors’ roles, values, and why they love working on the paper
- Goals for the year
- The publication’s social and community role
- Law and ethics (including forum status, why it’s essential that we do not have prior review, and the publication’s code of ethics)
- The publication’s process (of not only reporting, but also a brief overview of fact-checking, editing, and what they do if they make mistakes)
- The best ways for editors and administrators to communicate
- What the principal will do if she receives concerns or complaints from a community member regarding the publication or if she has her own concerns
- The principal’s questions
- Any initial story ideas or topics the principal may want to share
During this meeting, I talk little and listen a lot. Often I take notes while the editors and principal talk. If needed, I help facilitate the conversation. I also want the administrator to understand my role as an adviser: that I am not an editor and I do not approve copy, but help editors coach their staff, communicate and organize effectively, and produce a publication they are proud of.
Since we’ve started the tradition of this back-to-school meeting, the relationship between the principal and publication’s editors has been notably more productive and collegial. For example, when an article or editorial questions administrative decisions, there has been less kick-back and more understanding that questioning and reporting incisively are important parts of the publication’s role. Or when a parent recently demanded the principal reprimand a student journalist for expressing a view the parent didn’t agree with the principal not only defended the student’s right to expression but also immediately opened communication with the student editors.
This meeting is the first important step in having a positive year. Learning about where the editors are coming from helps the principal build trust that they are committed to producing good journalism. The principal is more likely to understand that scholastic journalism not only plays an important social and democratic role in the community but also that it is a learning experience.
However, one meeting is only the start of a conversation that continues to develop throughout the year. And while conflicts may arise, I’ve found that this initial dialogue focused on the objectives, process, and ethics of a free student press is by far the best way to begin.
Read More