Points to avoid in mission statements

Posted by John Bowen on Oct 1, 2015 in Blog, Ethical Issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Part 3 of a series  on pieces of the journalism puzzle: mission pieces to omit

by John Bowen

As with any guiding statement, unclear, undefineable or imprecise wording can lead to misinterpretation of intended principles.

Thus, we would suggest mission statements do not include these terms:

• Entertain(ment). To make this a major point of your mission in some ways limits expectations of what you can be. Engagement suggests audience involvement in more ways than just entertainment, as do other points, and is a much safer term to use.
• Responsible (without explanation to what). The question here is responsible to whom and for what. School officials historically have a different definition than journalists do for what is responsible. If you have to use it, specify what journalistic responsibilities you hold essential.
• Accountable (without explanation to what or who). This parallels responsible. Accountability can be and is important, but it also has to be paired with other points. For example, being accountable for the truth as best you can find it and for accuracy is different than just being accountable for mistakes.
• Excellence (without explanation to what). Excellence is a term we debated quite a bit. What excellence is and how it is determined, the committee decided, is included in other, more specific, principles.

Part 1: Build a strong foundation
Part 2: Careful preparation creates strong mission statements
Part 4: Fitting the pieces into a strong Foundation

Careful preparation creates
strong mission statements

Posted by John Bowen on Sep 29, 2015 in Blog, Ethical Issues, Legal issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Part 2 of a series  on pieces of the journalism puzzle: Mission Statements

by Candace and John Bowen
A mission statement defines your student media, shows your audience what’s important to you and helps them see why you do what you do. It’s not easy to write an effective one.

When JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee set it out write a sample mission statement to share, the 10 of us didn’t realize what a challenge this would be. Sure, it would take some tweaking and some discussions when this many writers work together. But we came to find out it was more than that.

[pullquote]We think you need a mission statement, and we think ours is worth consideration.[/pullquote]

The following is the model we finally agreed was best – though not perfect. We knew, for instance, we didn’t want to post a mission statement and have schools everywhere think it’s the only option. Schools are different: the student staffs, the advisers and the audiences have variations that show not one size fits all.

So here is our contribution. We think you need a mission statement, and we think ours is worth consideration. But we also share some points to think about as you write your own from scratch or adapt what we offered you.
• Audience engagement. Think about the importance of getting your audience to think and hopefully to act. Your mission should be to create media to get and keep them involved.
• Journalistic responsibility. Point out the basis of solid journalism you want as the very heart of your media: truth, integrity, completeness and accuracy.
• Additional reporting basics. Make sure your audience knows it can trust you because you also offer context to put reporting in perspective, verification that shows you double-checked, coherence that ensures it makes sense and presents all relevant information.
• Ethical reporting and editing. To complete the reporting process, present your work ethically and to professional standards for your audiences.
• Student-determined content. It should make a difference to your audience that students are in charge and decide all content for your student media. It definitely makes a difference to courts, too.
• Diversity of ideas and representation. It’s not just one clique that runs your student media. All voices contribute ideas and have representation in your media.
• Platform consistency. It’s not a newspaper policy and a separate Web, yearbook or TV station policy. As all media providers realize they are connected and each telling a story in the best way possible, it’s important the school’s media share the same policies and ethical approaches.
• School mission statement connection. It shouldn’t be surprising that school mission statements often mention the same points student media do: building thinking citizens, preparing students for democracy, etc. Tie parts of your media mission statement to those as well.

Our model, then, would look like this:

_____________ (school name) student media provide complete and accurate coverage, journalistically responsible, ethically gathered, edited and reported. Student-determined expression promotes democratic citizenship through public engagement diverse in both ideas and representation. 

Part 1: Build a strong foundation
Part 3: Points to avoid in mission statements
Part 4: Fitting the pieces into a strong Foundation

Build a strong foundation by locking in
pieces of the puzzle called journalism

Posted by John Bowen on Sep 27, 2015 in Blog, Ethical Issues, Legal issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Part 1 of a series  on fitting the pieces of the journalism puzzle:
Knowing where to start

by Candace and John Bowen
Preparing student media for a new year often begins with design- and theme-planning. For a good number this includes summer workshops for training in reporting platforms, visual reporting approaches and the latest in apps and across-platform developments.

We hope such training also includes the basics of law and ethics. Often, we fear it does not.

Because we believe a basic understanding of legal and ethical issues is key to the puzzle of a successful year of sound journalistic media, we’d recommend the solid foundation of journalism basics to support the 2015-16 year and beyond.

Ensure students understand their legal rights and responsibilities before publication and provide them with activities and resources to prepare them for the rigors of publishing and decision-making.

Our training list to start the year and continue through it would be organized something like this:
• Outline the goals and mission of your student media
Like a road map, a goals and mission statement frames direction for student media. A mission statement presents the underlying principles student media adhere to. Goals suggest specific accomplishments used in following the mission. Both establish the how and why for students and communities alike. Like a road map, students may choose different paths from year to year but the outcome stays fixed: thorough, accurate and credible journalism.
Resources:
– New values (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute) 
– April Fool’s Editions, “Don’t be a fool” (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute) 
– Balance and objectivity (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute)
– The role of student media (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)
– The role of the adviser (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)
–  Mission statement development  (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)

– JEA Model Mission statement (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)

• Train staff and editors in legal principles across platforms
Even though students might embrace online media, legal and ethical basics provide a framework for digital media now and what is yet to come. While there might be some changes, the basics of unprotected speech and the importance of knowing legal background won’t change in the foreseeable future.
Resources:
– Law of Student Press, book from the Student Press Law Center, also available on Kindle
– Student Press Law Center
– JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
– Public forum overview (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism (Quill & Scroll and JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Legal Guides (Student Press Law Center)

• Ensure board- and/or publication-level policies are in place
Strong board of education level and publication editorial policies reinforce principles student media use to reach their mission. Strong and effective editorial policies, carefully worded, protect not only student media but also school systems if legal issues arise. Lack of careful wording is worse than no policy at all. Policies reflect the publication’s values and commitments. Ideally, the most effective policies establish student media as designated public forums, without prior review and where students make all content decisions.
Resources
– The Foundations of Journalism: policies, ethics and staff manuals (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Board of education- and publication level- models (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Board media policies (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute) 
– Why avoiding prior review is educationally sound (Quill & Scroll Principal’s Guide) 
– Eliminating prior review (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute)

• Train staff and editors in ethical principles across platforms
Even though students might embrace online media, ethical basics provide a compass for print and digital media now and for what is yet to come. Practice in and knowledge of ethical critical thinking provides principles for journalistically responsible reporting. Reinforcement of ethical practices builds student publications steeped in ethical fitness.

Resources:
– JEA Adviser Code of Ethics (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Online ethics guidelines for student media (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)
– Questions student staffs should discuss before entering the social media environment (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)
– SPJ Code of ethics (Society of Professional Journalists) 
– Critical thinking, ethics and knowledge-based practice in visual media (Journalist’s Resource)

• Establish, for online or print, a content verification process
While this might have been part of skills-oriented summer workshop training and practice, its importance goes without question. Verification, credibility, context and accuracy are the reporting cornerstones of journalism. Each is rooted in establishing a rigorous ethical process.
Resources:
– Planning and gathering information/producing content (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Getting it right (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute)
– Journalism as a discipline of verification (American Press Institute) 
– Verification (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee)

• Clarify who owns content
To avoid issues if someone tries to sell your yearbook content online or you want to sell photos, determine ahead of time who owns the content of student work. It’s important to plan this ahead of incidents.

Resources:
– Who Owns Student Content? (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
– Back to School: Who Owns What? (Student Press Law Center) 
– Contribution to Collective Work U.S. Copyright Office

• Develop guidelines for handing takedown demands if online
Fielding requests for takedown demands is increasingly a decision student media have to make, either from reporters after they have left school or from sources because they do not like the story. Choices are limited, and involve ethical thinking.

Resources:
–Takedown demands (JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee) 
–Responding to takedown demands (Student Press Law Center) 
–Takedown requests (JEA SPRC Press Rights Minute)

Without an understanding of rights and responsibilities – the “could we?” and “should we?” of producing media, staffs can have the most attractive layouts imaginable and captivating story-telling, but they could still make legal and ethical mistakes that would ruin their chance to produce anything else for their audience.

Part 1: Build a strong foundation
Part 2: Careful preparation creates strong mission statements
Part 3: Points to avoid
Part 4: Fitting the pieces into a strong Foundation

2015 Constitution Day lessons

Posted by John Bowen on Aug 31, 2015 in Blog, Ethical Issues, Legal issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Please contact me  if you have any questions or feedback about the lessons or how to implement them. For a video about the lessons, go to https://youtu.be/39c8sZVmT20.

The SPRC works to provide information and resources on legal and ethical issues to journalism students, teachers and administrators. SPRC members also work to promote the First Amendment rights of students across the nation.

The lessons
• Celebrating Constitution Day, by Lori Keekley.This activity encourages the English, social studies and journalism teachers to engage students in exploring the Constitution’s relevance to their daily lives, facts about the Constitution and understanding the amendments to the Constitution
• Crossword Puzzle, by Lori Keekley. For fun activities to celebrate Constitution Day in a number of curricular areas.
• Understanding the perils of prior review and restraint, by Jeff Kocur. Click here for the activity. For additional resources and model ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures for this, go here and here.
• Listening with a skeptical ear: checking source accuracy and credibility by John Bowen. With candidates jostling for positions in the 2016 presidential election and numerous state, local races taking shape and issues developing readers and viewers face an onslaught of information not limited to politics. Student journalists must able to separate valid from questionable information and know how to determine if sources and their messages are credible.
• Where should journalists draw the line? by John Bowen. By examining The Huffington Post’s announcement it would only report Donald Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination for president on the entertainment pages, students can further explore ethical issues pertaining to the decision while again examining the role of media.
• Should there be limits to taking a stance in front page design? by John Bowen. This lesson examines the ethical and philosophical issues as to whether it is OK for a student newspaper to Rainbow Filter its Twitter profile picture or show any unlabeled viewpoint.
• Censorship and broadcast video by Chris Waugaman. This lesson would be intended to be a lesson used with producers in a broadcasting class or even anonline editors who often use video and stream events. Students will learn terms that familiarize them with censorship in video and radio. Students will also learn how to make critical decisions regarding their press rights by applying the case outcomes they learn in this lesson.

To see past years’ lessons, go here.

Please send any feedback to keekley@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Lori Keekley
For JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee and the Constitution Day Committee

Constitution Day Committee
John Bowen, MJE, Kent State University (OH)
Lori Keekley, MJE, St. Louis Park High School (MN)
Jeff Kocur, CJE, Hopkins High School (MN)

Chris Waugaman, Prince George High School (VA)

Content list

Listening with a skeptical ear:
A lesson on how to check out
source accuracy and credibility

Posted by John Bowen on Aug 31, 2015 in Blog, Ethical Issues, Legal issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Title
Listening with a skeptical ear: A lesson on how to check out source accuracy
and credibility

Description
Tis the season.

With candidates jostling for positions in the 2016 presidential election and numerous state, local races taking shape and issues developing readers and viewers face an onslaught of information not limited to politics.

Student journalists must able to separate valid from questionable information and know how to determine if sources and their messages are credible.

Objectives
•  Students will be able to evaluate information they obtain and pass on
•  Students will be able to identify and find credible sources to verify information
• Students will apply approaches and skills from the exercise and create ethical guidelines and procedures for skeptical knowing.

Common Core State Standards

Length
150 minutes

Materials / resources
• Watching only Fox News makes you less informed than watching no news at all
• Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information (book review)
• Journalist Bill Kovach about the new book ‘Blur’
• Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information
• Missouri sheriff’s ‘In God We Trust’ patrol car decals spark church vs. state debate
• “Ask these 10 questions to make good ethical decisions”

Materials referenced/used
In addition to the materials linked, we would urge teachers to  check out these two books for a more detailed look at skeptical knowing and a new look at the mission of journalism.
• Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information overload, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Bloomsbury, 2010
• The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, Three Rivers Press, 2007.

Lesson step-by-step

Pre-Day 1

1. Assign students the “Watching only Fox News” study and tell them to plan to discuss it the next day. Focal points could include what helps them feel confident in what information they gather personally? How does that compare with information they gain from sources they interview or research?
2. Have students make a list of the sources/information they trust and why they trust it. Tell them you will ask them to talk about how they tell what information, as well as news sources, they consider reliable, credible and thorough.
3. Have students read and be ready to  discuss the three resources summarizing information from Blur, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.

• Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information (book review)

• Journalist Bill Kovach about the new book ‘Blur’

• Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information

Day 1

Introduce students to the idea of “skeptical knowing” by sharing the Blur links. Discuss the content of the Blur resources. Ask students  to talk about the questions they would use to verify issues they had with sources or stories. Then address their verification procedures. As the discussion continues, give them the Question Checklist to compare with their responses.

Review “skeptical knowing” points from Blur with students.

Give students the “Missouri sheriff’s ‘In God We Trust’ patrol car decals spark church vs. state debate” and ask them, for Day 2, to check out the information and be able to discuss the accuracy and believability of it. How through is the story? Is there enough information to judge completeness and context? What, if anything, do they feel is missing? What might they want to see added? They can also use the Question checklist.

Day 2

Discuss the story and student responses. As students discuss their choices, share with them the “10 questions” article from Poynter.

As a culminating group exercise, have students design ethical guideline(s) concerning “skeptical knowing” of information gathering and sharing as well as procedures students develop that they can apply.

Access instructions and how to use the ethical guidelines-staff manual approaches and a model of what the concept would look like.

Assessment
The guidelines and procedures will be compiled and added into the staff manual after discussion by student media staffs.

The Question checklist for Day 2 (see handout)
Once students have read the stories, urge them to consider the following questions:

• What sources are used in the stories? Why should I believe them? What additional sources might add depth, more information? How many sources are used?
• How would students check the credibility and reliability of sources and information?
• What level of sourcing are we dealing with: experts, authorities, knowledgables, reactors?
• Are the reporters asking these sources questions they are qualified to answer reliably? Are the sources speaking within their fields of expertise?
• Which information and which stories do they consider the most reliable?  Credible? Why?
• Which the least, and why?
• Is the information complete, or what information is missing?
• Is there a clear line between fact and speculation?
• Does the information in the story have a context? Can the reporter – and the audience – understand the impact of that context?
• What criteria do they use to determine credibility of information?  Of sources? Is there reputable verification of the information?
• How important is their understanding of what words used in the stories mean? Are words and facts used in a context that helps understanding?
• Am ‘I as a journalist’ learning what I need to, and is the audience?
• What have they learned from this activity they can use to improve their own reporting?
• How did the “skeptical knowing” process help them look at the stories and understand the newsgathering and sharing, process? Understand sourcing?
• Which of the stories helped you make sense of the situation? Why?

What questions can students add to the list?

Differentiation
The assignment can be expanded to three days by having students do readings and some work during class, leaving the second day for drafting ethics guidelines and staff manual procedures.

A second option could shorten processing time by giving them Day 1 materials and work to be done outside of class and doing Day 2 in class.

Limits to taking a stance
in front page design?

Posted by John Bowen on Aug 31, 2015 in Blog, Ethical Issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching, Visual Reporting | 0 comments

Title
What are the limits to showing support/opposition of timely events or issues in design elements on news pages?

Description
Was it OK for student newspaper to Rainbow Filter its Twitter profile pic?

Student journalists have always been taught standards of objectivity. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage led at least one publication, The Daily Evergreen of University of Washington, to make a statement in its nameplate.

How should scholastic media handle similar advocacy? What are the ethical and philosophical issues. Should student media show advocacy positions in news slots?  Can students design ethical guidelines and procedures for staff manuals concerning the issues?

Where to draw the line on advocacy journalism?

Objectives
• Students will be able to examine controversial issues and reach reasoned decisions and exhibit critical thinking skills
• Students will be able to identify key points in controversial issues and effectively explain their decisions
• Students will be apply skills of critical thinking and ethical research to reach guidelines and procedures to guide their media to handle controversial issues.

Common Core State Standards

Length
150 minutes

Materials/resources

• After Gay Marriage Ruling, Was It OK for Student Newspaper to Rainbow Filter Its Twitter Profile Pic?

Lesson step-by-step

Day 1

Ask students what they know about the 2015 U. S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges.

In the discussion, the teacher or an appointed student should write student comments on the board.

Next, assign the reading, After Gay Marriage Ruling, Was It OK for Student Newspaper to Rainbow Filter Its Twitter Profile Pic? Direct students to follow the links and read the comments.

Students should read the article and related materials and prepare three questions about the reading for class discussion. They should also answer this question for the next day: Was It OK for Student Newspaper to Rainbow Filter Its Twitter Profile Pic?

Urge them to do additional research on their own to help provide support in preparing an answer to their question. They could search the terms journalistic objectivity, journalism ethics, advocacy journalism or follow any of the links in the reading. They can use these searches to add to their three questions.

Day 2 (would be Day 1 if using the Differentiation)

Discussion of the question and related issues can be in small groups or as a large group. Take steps to see that all participate. The question they would comes to consensus is: Would it be OK for student media to showcase a position in the design or presentation of its news format?

Student answers to the question might not be as important as looking at the process used and discussion toward reaching consensus on an answer. The philosophical question behind the exercise is Where to draw the line on advocacy journalism?

Take the time needed so all students have a chance to be heard and to ask questions in large group or smaller teams.

Once adequate time has been given to discussion, set the stage for decision making on Day 3, which will involve the group drafting ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures that would cover the question.

The product would be approved by the student media staff (if different from the class) and added to the staff manual.

Day 3

Either in a large group or in smaller groups, draft ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures on the question.

Access instructions and how to use the ethical guidelines-staff manual approaches and a model of what the concept would look like.

Discuss the drafts and reach consensus.

Differentiation

The activities can be carried out in large groups or small groups.