New policy, ethics and staff manual elements posted
Just to give everyone a heads-up, the SPRC just published its Foundations of Journalism package to offer a new look at how editorial policies interact with ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures.
Sitemap for developing
Policy and Ethics in Student Media
Policy and Ethics Sitemap
Links from the boldfaced main sections below are intended to be sequential in nature but can also be used menu style. Pick one model from policies and as many as you need from the ethics/staff manual sections and you are on your way to building your own Foundations package. We think the policy section should come first since it sets the stage for all other areas, but that choice remains yours.
Introductory articles to policies
This section will outline the importance of our two types of policies, board-level and media-level and provide you with recommended language as well as comments on each of the five recommended levels. Other articles outline public forums and prior review.
—Front page to the project —Introductory article —Public forum overview —Prior review and restraint —Quick access to policy models —Creating a mission statement –Model for ethical guidelines
Introductory article link to ethics
This section will introduce how we visualize our concept, why we created it this way and our thoughts on updating ethics guidelines and staff manual. Please note that we believe in user additions to all these sections.
Establishing program Structure
We designed the ethics and staff manual sections into four main segments, from establishing the principles and ethical guidelines to evaluating them. This group of guidelines and procedures strives to establish basic principles and structure that work for all student media.
—School board and media policy —Publication level policy
—The role of student media —The role of the adviser
—Editor-staff relationships —Staff conduct
—Balance and objectivity —Academic dishonesty
—Ownership of student content —jeamodeleditpolicy
— Creating “Put Up” guidelines —Recognizing public spaces
—Understanding “no publication” guidelines —Publishing satire
Planning and gathering information
This group of guidelines stresses basic principles and process of information gathering across platforms. These represent more detailed approaches to carrying out daily journalistic functions.
—News judgment and news values —Prior review/prior restraint
—Controversial coverage —Diversity of sources
—Recording sources during interviews —Verification
—Allowing sources to see content before publication
—Email, texting and digital information gathering
—Unnamed sources —Treatment of minors
—Public records and meetings —Treatment of sources
Producing content
This group of ethics statements and staff manual procedures focuses more on the production of journalistic content, from print to social media and from reporting to advertising.
—Handling links —Guides for breaking news
—Providing content —Writing process
—Social media –Use of profanity
—Obituaries —Sponsored content
—Advertising —Visual reporting
— Producing video dubs — Handling user-generated content
Assessing and responding
We envision this section focusing on how students and advisers evaluate their content. We would also include specialized issues.
—Evaluating and critiquing content —Correcting errors
—Takedown requests — Letters to the editor/online comments
Requests for specific ethical/manual statements
This version of Policy and Ethical guidelines is a living, breathing document to which we welcome comments and suggestions. If you have experience with something we did not include, please use the comment section here to let us know what you would like us to add, or just to comment.
Resources
We intend for these resource lists bring additional support and perspective to each of the more specialized and directly related resources attached to each of the files above.
If there are resources you find useful, please use the comment section here to share your knowledge.
Read More
Working with a board-approved policy
Policy
Staffs should include the district policy in their staff manuals if available. If not, they should work towards reaching agreement with the administration and school board for a policy all can agree makes the most educational sense. Three examples of these board policies are available, each with that same basic premise but with increasingly more detail and explanation of philosophy. Each, however, begins with the statement that all student media are designated public forums where students make all content decisions.
It’s important to stick to the basics for the board-approved policies. If ethical or journalistic practice decisions are included in an official school policy, the limitations they describe take on a whole new significance. Now they are not just for the staff to enforce but, by implication, are provisions that school administrators could use to discipline a publication staff or adviser or even to censor content that they believe violates what is written. Including a subjective ethical determination in a school policy gives the school the ability to overrule the ethical decisions of student editors.
Lacking a board-approved policy, student media staffs should create one of their own. (LINK) Although this doesn’t have the legal weight of a board-approved policy, it should state the publication is a designate public forum for student expression where students make all content decisions. This shows how the media staffs operate and could show they are forums “in practice.” While not as solid a legal foundation as “in policy,” courts have recognized this as free speech protection under Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier.
Ethical guidelines
Students should understand that while they can and should adopt best practices and ethical guidelines for their publication, the school district’s or school board’s media policy (if one exists) could impact student editors’ ethical decisions. This reality does not preclude students from exercising their best ethical judgment. Rather, it is an incentive for students to advocate their role and a district-level policy that protects them.
Staff manual process
A student media staff manual should include copies of the school district or school board media policy as well as media editorial policy. Furthermore, the staff manual may provide procedures for students addressing the school administration in the case of a disagreement or policy confusion. Students should also consider including in the manual some guidelines for proposing policy changes to the school board or petitioning the district for a policy to improve on what they have (e.g., How does a student request to be put on the agenda for a school board meeting?).
Suggestions
• Obtain a copy of the school district’s media or student expression policy.
• Compare district policy to your staff procedure and identify potential areas for misunderstanding or conflict (e.g., the district policy includes more restrictions on student speech/press than actually occurs).
• Make a plan to advocate change in the district’s policy that would align it more closely with how the staff really operates.
• Recognize that student media staffs, not the adviser, are best suited to advocate their role. Advisers must navigate a difficult line as employee and should not be put in a position to defend student work.
• Consider advocating a state law that would protect student free expression rights.
Resources
Lesson: Developing a Presentation for Your School Board, Journalism Education Association
Rethinking Your Forum Status, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
What Do I Do When I’m Censored?, Student Press Law Center
Model Guidelines for High School Student Media, Student Press Law Center
Model Legislation to Protect Student Free Expression Rights, Student Press Law Center
JEA Model Editorial Policy, Journalism Education Association
Audio: Board Media Policies, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
Audio: The Tinker Standard, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
Audio: The Hazelwood Decision, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
Audio: Combined Editorial Policy, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
Understanding the Difference Between a School Board policy and Publication Policy/practice, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Deciding Which Forum Best Serves Your Students – and your Community, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Questions to Answer in Policy Development, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Philosophical Questions About Policy Development, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Importance of Designated Public Forum Status, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Other Policy Considerations, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
To return to Policy and Ethics sitemap, go here.
Read MoreBuilding student media foundations
with policy and ethics
Help with crafting policies
and ethical guidelines for student media
This project is a two-fold effort to combine policy, ethics and staff manual procedure into an integrated process where policy sets the stage for ethical guidelines and ethical guidelines shape staff manual procedure.
Our interest in developing the project began when we found several instances when a school administrator in a potential censorship situation wanted to enforce — even punish — students for not following ethics statements because policy, ethics and staff manual points were all intermixed in a common document that the school administrator presumed he had the authority to enforce based on his interpretation.
Hence, our work ties the three elements together – principle, process and procedure – but as statements that separately outline the ideas behind what staffs do.
- This means “principle” is a student media policy.One approved at the board level is best and should be simple and straightforward, acknowledging the media are designated forums of student expression, where students make final content decisions. (See examples following)
Lacking that approval, a similar editorial policy at the publication level is useful, too, because, according to court decisions, operating as a designated public forum in practice is also a good way to protect student free speech rights.
- The “process” is the ethical guidelines. Unlike laws, ethical situations are right vs. right dilemmas and not right vs. wrong. Ethical guidelines are recommendations and thus cannot be broken as laws can. These guidelines help students decide how they operate on a daily basis, and their application is left in the hands of the students.
- The “procedure” is the staff manual, the specific actions and processes the staff uses regularly – how letters are handled, what happens when a source wants to be anonymous – all the things that ensure a staff operates in a professional and credible manner. These also are exclusively enforced by the student staff itself.
The idea is not to dictate policy, ethics guidelines or staff manual models but to provide a menu of items student staffs can choose.
For example, five editorial policy models are part of this project, four for board-level policies and one for a publication-level editorial policy.
All stress student media should be “designated public forums for student expression where students make all content decisions without prior review by school officials.”
[pullquote]Five editorial policy models are part of this project, four for board-level policies and one for a publication-level editorial policy.
All stress student media should be “designated public forums for student expression where students make all content decisions without prior review by school officials.”[/pullquote]
Students and advisers can then add from a separate menu of ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures. Each ethical principle offers staff manual suggestions that stem from its premise.
This separates what must be followed – the board-approved policy – from all the other guidelines, practices and procedures that may change some from year to year and staff to staff. By doing this, staffs can shape their media with roadmaps they have devised.
Resources
Ethics codes are invaluable in student journalism, but not as a guide for punishment, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
• For a sitemap of inclusive materials, go here.
• To go to How to Use the List of Ethics and Staff manuals, go here.
• Go here for a list of General Resources.
How to use this guide for
ethical use of staff manuals
A strong and effective staff manual describes the procedures of the staff in accordance with best policies and specific ethical guidelines. Because a staff manual should be a collaborative creation between students and advisers, it also becomes a living document, changing as necessary to reflect the culture and practices of the staff.
Each year staff members should have the opportunity – and obligation – to update items to ensure the product serves their needs and those of their audiences.
A good staff manual creates an atmosphere consistent with board- and media-level policies’ sound legal principles and uses ethical guidelines to shape procedure. Such a roadmap can help students justify content to administrators or introduce new staffers to common newsroom policies.
[pullquote]A good staff manual creates an atmosphere consistent with board- and media-level policies’ sound legal principles and uses ethical guidelines to shape procedure. Such a roadmap can help students justify content to administrators or introduce new staffers to common newsroom policies.[/pullquote]
While a staff manual is primarily an internal document and not used as a guide to punishment, student media should adhere to staff manual procedures to show professionalism and consistency in approach. This, in turn, can improve the credibility of student media.
For this reason, student media should avoid mixing ethics guidelines with staff manual processes. While processes or procedures can include the verbs “will” and “must,” guidelines should be framed with “should” and “could.”
The elements of this staff manual guide present a buffet of choices for advisers and students looking to build a cohesive, personalized manual. Some may not apply to every school. Other entries will need to be personalized to fit specific student media missions or situations.
So, this guide provides not only the ethical tenets that should shape processes but also suggestions for students and advisers to consider when writing their own staff manual entries.
[pullquote]The elements of this staff manual guide present a buffet of choices for advisers and students looking to build a cohesive, personalized manual. Some may not apply to every school. Other entries will need to be personalized to fit specific student media missions or situations.[/pullquote]
On a final note, students and advisers should know that this guide is not all-inclusive. Instead, we have focused on those entries in a staff manual that are specifically tied to ethical considerations.
A comprehensive staff manual will also include entries that explain important processes that have no significant ethical issues.
To help in your creation of ethical guidelines for staff manuals, we created this model.
Those additional entries might include:
• Advertising rates for that year
• Ad size specifications
• Ad size specifications
• Ad contracts
• Staff roster and contact information
• Grade-level rosters to check names/grades
• Club lists and rosters
• Sports rosters, including coach contact information
• Campus map
• Class room directory
• AP style checklist
• Publication style checklist
• Photo shoot checklist
• Photo editing checklist
• Design/design consistency checklist
• Story/content sequence (how a story moves through the publication system)
• Sports and club schedules
• Bell schedule
• School calendar
• How-to sheets for common design/software procedures
• Faculty roster
• Job descriptions for each staff and adviser position
• Editorial board makeup and duties
• Worknight or workday dates and times
• Sample staff contract
• Equipment checkout procedures
• Parent booster group information
• Sample advertising rate sheet
• Sample advertising ad contract
• Board of education, schools officials names and contact information
• City public officials contact information
• City offices and contact information
• Civic leader names and contact information
• Schedule of board of education meetings and activities
What would you add to the list above? Leave a comment here.
Return to sitemap.
Read More
Evaluating and critiquing content
Ethical guidelines
Students should engage in a consistent and ongoing process to evaluate content of their student media. Open, constructive, robust and healthy newsroom dialogue plays a vital role in a publication’s ongoing development. Evaluating and critiquing content helps students to reflect on the process and outcome and allows them to identify areas for improvement. Such reflection is also critical to the overall learning process and mastery of journalistic skills.
Staff manual process
Students should build an evaluation process into the publication cycle. The process should reflect regular input from all segments of the publication’s audience, continually taking into account who is underserved. Students should consider coverage in terms of who was affected by it, outcomes and lessons learned. This process should also include a brainstorming session that considers how to apply these lessons in the future.
Suggestions
Student editors should lead the evaluation process, seeking feedback from all media staff members. Questions to consider during this process could include:
- How are sources depicted? Are they quoted accurately and fairly? Are they depicted without bias? Do they authentically represent the audience?
- Does coverage include anything that wasn’t really there?
- Does coverage deceive the audience in any way?
- Does coverage reflect any stereotypes? Does it make assumptions?
- Does coverage reflect transparency about reporting methods and motives?
- What is missing from the coverage? Is any follow-up necessary? If so, what will that look like?
- Does coverage reflect humility and honesty about the limits of knowledge?
Resources
Lesson: News Literacy and the Publication Staff, Journalism Education Association
Audio: Evaluating And Critiquing Content, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission, Press Rights Minute
Return to sitemap.
Read More