The role of student media
Ethical guidelines
Journalists often are considered mirrors on society. As such, journalism should reflect the community in which it is produced. In order to also maintain their watchdog function, journalists must also be able to act as candles that illuminate and challenge a community’s values and preconceptions. Monitoring the status quo and the powers that be is one way journalists can both reflect and challenge their communities. This journalistic practice helps maintain the free and accurate flow of information.
Additionally, student media should be independent from their school’s public relations arm. The purpose of student media is to report school and community issues and events. Consequently, the purpose of student media is not to protect the image of the school or district.
These roles are premised on the idea that student media can operate in an independent manner.
JEA strongly rejects both prior review and restraint as tools in the education process and agrees with other national journalism education groups that no valid educational justification exists for prior review of scholastic media.
Prior review and prior restraint of student media content by school officials are weapons in the arsenal of censorship. Not only do they limit student learning and application, but they also restrict student critical thinking and analysis.
- Prior review occurs when school administrators – or anyone in a position of authority outside the editorial staff – demands to read, view or approve content prior to publication and/or distribution. JEA includes review, but not demanding change, as part of the adviser’s role.
- Prior restraint happens when anyone not on the student staff – often after they have read material (prior review) – requires pre-distribution changes to inhibit, ban or restrain content before release to the audience.
Free expression, supported by journalistic responsibility, empowers students to exercise their civic engagement and responsibility as they practice the principles of a free, open democracy.
Staff manual process
A media-level editorial policy/guideline should designate student media as public forums for student expression in which students make all final decisions of content without review from school officials.
Student journalists must be attuned to the institutions, people and issues that most affect their readers: students. By engaging with this community, actively looking for stories and becoming part of the institutional fabric of their schools, student journalists will be prepared to recognize which stories will reflect and challenge their community.
Students should define this distinct role in their school community and should highlight the difference between their role and that of the school’s public relations department.
Suggestions
• Persuade school officials to adopt or endorse a policy that designates student media as public forums for student expression in which students make all final decisions of content without prior review.
• Develop principles and procedures that uphold scholastic media as designated public forums practicing professional and ethical standards.
• Be the eyes and ears for readers. What information should they know but aren’t likely to seek on their own?
• Assign beats to represent the most important topics, institutions and people in the community. Keeping tabs on the same topic throughout the year will help students develop a keen nose for news and will help them understand the unique dynamics at play in their community.
• Include entrepreneurial assignments that allow students to explore key issues and events in the communities, expanding their eyes and ears for news.
• Address strategies that help reporters remain detached from stories they cover in their own communities. The staff manual should address strategies for situations when students are too entrenched in the community to cover it in an ethically sound manner.
• Elaborate the specific role of student media in the community and how this role differs from the school’s public relations functions.
• Encourage an open-door policy and open line of communication between editors and administrators, but don’t allow student media to serve as an extension of the district public relations department.
• Ensure coherent and complete coverage of events, issues and people provides evidence of the student media program’s commitment to professional standards.
How administrators can help
Strong strategies exist to help administrators support quality journalism programs. These include:
• Working with advisers and students to develop public forum policies
• Hiring qualified advisers and journalism teachers
• Working with students cooperatively to be good sources for stories
• Building trust in the learning and communication process in a way that also reduces liability concerns of the school system
• Offering constructive feedback after each publication or airing
• Increasing dialogue among school staff and students, thus encouraging outlets of expression that strengthen school safety( • Expanding school and community understanding and appreciation of the value of free, journalistically responsible, student media
• Providing necessary resources to support and maintain student media programs, including financial support, master schedule preferences, development opportunities and time.
JEA condemns prior review because it
• Contradicts the school’s responsibility to teach and maintain, through example, the principles of democracy
• Enables school administrators, who are government officials, to decide in advance what people will read or know. Such officials are potential newsmakers, and their involvement with the news-making process interferes with the public’s right to know
• Creates the possibility of viewpoint discrimination, undermining the marketplace of ideas and all pretext of responsible journalism
• Leads to self-censorship, the most chilling and pervasive form of censorship. Such fear eliminates any chance of critical thinking, decision-making or respect for the opinions of others
• Stifles growth so students do not mature into thinking, discerning, effective contributing citizens in the democracy
• Impairs the ability of a school’s communities to discern the truth about the school and the accuracy of information citizens need to make logical decisions and cast intelligent votes
• Negates the educational value of a trained, professionally active adviser and teacher working with students in a counseling, learning environment. Prior review simply makes the teacher an accessory, as if what is taught really doesn’t matter.
Instead, we believe
• Rights, not authority and discipline, prepare students for roles in a democracy as thinking, discerning, contributing citizens
• Student media best serves their communities when they are editorially independent and present truthful and accurate information
• Student media are safe and peaceful places a for dissemination of ideas, and with ideas there is no clear right or wrong
• Ultimate civic engagement and involvement only occur where students learn that they can practice constitutional guarantees
• Responsible journalism occurs when a qualified faculty adviser, clear publications policies and professionally oriented journalism curriculum exist
• Prior review interferes with the dynamic process of learning. Such review and censorship are the last resort of an educational system failing its present and future citizens.
Resources
Journalism Education Association Statement on Prior Review
Statements to Accompany JEA’s Definitions of Prior Review and Restraint, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Lesson: Crafting the Argument, Journalism Education Association
Questions for Those Who Prior Review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Building a Climate of Trust Can Ease Prior Review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Seeking a Cure for the Hazelwood Blues: A Call to Action, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Audio: Positive Administrator Relations, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
Audio: 10 Tips for Dealing With Censorship, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
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Adviser responsibilities
Ethical guidelines
The role of the adviser in student-run media incorporates teacher, coach, counselor, listener and devil’s advocate but not doer.
Students learn best when they are empowered to make their own decisions with support from the adviser on the sideline. A clear understanding of the adviser’s role helps students take ownership of their work and the program overall.
Staff manual process
The adviser position should have a job description, just as staff members do. Outlining what the adviser will and won’t do makes all parties aware of the student-centered environment, helps students and parents understand the leadership structure of the editorial board and prevents tasks from going unassigned.
Suggestions
Possible considerations for advisers to address include:
• Making reporting assignments and setting deadlines
• Evaluating student work (editing and providing feedback versus grading)
• Providing work periods outside class time, such as deadline nights, and determining parameters for these sessions
• Teaching about financial considerations and offering guidance on budgetary matters
• Acting as a liaison with service professionals
• Handling disciplinary issues in accordance with school policies and contractual obligations
• Planning instruction and curriculum
• Selecting staff members
• Clarifying student responsibilities adviser will not complete (such as conducting interviews, finishing work in progress, shooting photos, selling ads, changing stories, correcting errors, making final content decisions).
Resources
JEA Standards for Journalism Educators, Journalism Education Association
JEA Adviser Code of Ethics JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Audio: 10 Tips for Dealing With Censorship, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
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Read MoreEditor-staff relationships
Ethical guidelines
Editors should conduct all relationships with staff members in a fair and professional manner. By considering the program’s best interests above matters of personality, students will be able to work together in a positive and productive environment.
Staff manual process
Editors should be aware of potential challenges that may arise as a result of both positive and negative relationships with peers. While it may be unrealistic for editors to define absolute policies, they should use the staff manual as an opportunity to address ethical considerations of relationships with suggested model behavior.
Suggestions
• Favoritism: When editors treat all staff members equally, it creates a positive atmosphere for collaboration. Editors should hold all staff members accountable following a consistent model regardless of personal relationships or friendships outside of the staff setting. All aspects of production, from assigning stories to recognizing excellent work, should be based on individual performance. If editors favor their friends or seem to pick on particular students, it can build resentment among the staff and weaken working relationships.
• Constructive feedback: Editors may find themselves having difficult conversations with staff members about their performance. These interactions are best done in person and privately. It may be inconvenient to arrange the ideal setting for this type of conference, but taking the time to keep criticism private is important for the health of the working relationship.
• Dating: Relationships among staff members may develop into something beyond the student media setting. Everyone involved should work to keep this separate from the experience in the newsroom. Students should enter into dating relationships with fellow staff members cautiously, knowing that regardless of outcome, they will be expected to work together in the future. All staff members should be expected to be respectful of relationships among staff members and not to take sides or let a romantic relationship interfere with their role in student media.
• Team building: Ongoing team-building exercises will help to develop positive staff relationships.
• Siblings: Editors with siblings on staff should make every effort to ensure that the sibling is treated as fairly as other staffers. Assigning the sibling to another editor provides the distance for the sibling’s growth as a journalist.
Resources
Lesson: Organizing Your Staff, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: Role Playing, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: Learning About Your Leadership Style, Journalism Education Association
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Read MorePrior review/restraint
Ethical guidelines
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.
Staff manual process
The student editorial board should design an editorial policy that establishes student media as designated public forums for student expression where students make all final decisions of content.
The student editorial board should also study JEA and SPLC materials, statements and lessons to build educational arguments against prior review.
Resources
Prior review button on menu bar, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
JEA Board Statement on Prior Review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Building a Climate of Trust Can Ease Prior Review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Seeking a Cure for the Hazelwood Blues: A call to Action, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Audio: Panic Button, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
Audio: Eliminating Prior Review, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
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Read MoreStaff conduct
Ethical guidelines
Students participating in scholastic media should hold themselves to high standards to earn and preserve trust and respect from the audiences they serve. Lapses in judgment affect the staff as well as the credibility of the media they produce. Students should realize that discipline problems or poor choices extend beyond individual consequences.
Staff manual process
Editors should develop guidelines for staff behavior as part of the staff application. Staff members should be required to sign a staff contract to demonstrate their understanding of and commitment to expected student conduct. The contract should specify consequences and/or conditions for removal from staff. Similarly, students should study professional codes of ethics and may consider creating their own.
Suggestions
• All school rules should apply. Staffs should not condone or tolerate drug or alcohol use. Editors should work with the adviser to determine a policy for how to handle infractions in conjunction with or in addition to school-mandated punishment. For example, if a staff member is suspended from school for a drug-related offense, how does this affect the student’s participation on staff?
• If students cannot be trusted in other classes or programs on campus, their work as journalists also will be questioned. Cheating and/or academic dishonesty should not be tolerated. The staff manual and contract should specify consequences for plagiarism, fabrication and other offenses. This may include earning zero credit and being suspended or removed from staff.
• If staff members are unsupervised or have access on campus to areas generally considered off-limits to students, they should conduct themselves in a professional manner. Students should not go places on campus that are not open or accessible to them. It would be unethical to report on events or circumstances that occur in areas where students have gained unauthorized access, although it may lead to discussion or research for future reporting conducted under authorized access.
• Press credentials are intended only for staff members. Students should use their press passes for reporting purposes only and not to gain free admission for personal reasons. Students should not allow unauthorized use of their press passes or provide non-staff access to friends or family members. When students are wearing or using media credentials, their focus should be on reporting for student media and representing the news outlet. During that time, students are not fans, spectators or audience members in the traditional sense; staff members should be aware they are visible and accountable for how they represent themselves and should maintain a professional, objective manner. Similarly, it would be unethical for student journalists to conceal their press credentials or to attend an event in an official reporting capacity without making their intentions known.
• Reporting on a club, event, or team in which students are directly involved is a conflict of interest; even if reporters strive to remain neutral and report objectively, it is unfair to readers. Staff members may lead each other to story ideas or help connect sources, but they should not write about stories to which they are connected.
• Receiving compensation from sources is not ethical. Students should not receive perks or free items such as meals, tickets or merchandise in exchange for writing a news or feature story to promote a group, product or service. If students choose to write a review, their work should be unbiased and should specify if any aspect of the experience was provided free based on their role as student journalists.
• Students should exhibit professionalism at outside events.
• Regular attendance in class and at required staff functions is part of the student media experience. Students who have frequent absences from class create complications for staff production. The staff manual and contract should specify expectations for attending work sessions and any other required functions so students are able to plan their schedules accordingly. Editors should work with the adviser to determine what level of participation is reasonable from all staff members and what, if any, time outside class may be necessary or required. The policy and contract should take into consideration factors such as transportation, health challenges, extracurricular activities and employment in order to achieve a win-win for students to make an informed decision about their participation on a student media staff. The policy and contract also should specify circumstances under which absences or failure to attend expected staff commitments could lead to removal. Students might consider having parents sign the contract as well to show their understanding of their son’s or daughter’s obligations.
• Meeting deadlines is essential to staff success. Students should work with the adviser to determine what course of action to take in the event of missed deadlines, which may include no credit, reduced credit, loss of privileges and/or removal from staff.
• Students should treat other staff members with respect and should work to resolve any conflicts peacefully and respectfully without involving other students. Editors may choose to create a specific conflict resolution policy to serve as neutral mediators when needed. Conflicts from within the program spreading beyond the newsroom hurt the program’s reputation.
• Bullying of any type should not be tolerated.
• Students should strive to maintain a calm and professional demeanor even in situations that may rise to heated or confrontational levels. Especially when reporting in an official capacity at a community event, school board meeting, protest or rally, reporters should not take an adversarial role or become part of the story.
• The following scenarios might be cause for removal or discipline from student media: misuse of school or media program equipment, failure to meet deadlines, plagiarism or fabrication, drug or alcohol use, stealing and inappropriate behavior on a school trip.
Resources
Guidelines for Avoiding Conflict of Interest, Radio Television Digital News Association
NPR Ethics Handbook/Independence/Conflict of Interest, National Public Radio
Why Transparency Is Not Enough: The Case of Mr. Mike, National Public Radio
Journalists face conflicts of interest too, Society of Professional Journalists
Avoiding conflicts of interest as a student journalist, Scripps Media
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, Society of Professional Journalists
Model Code of Ethics for High School Journalists, National Scholastic Press Association
National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics
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Read MoreBalance and objectivity
Ethical guidelines
Journalists should prioritize balance and objectivity as a staff philosophy and content standard. Staff members can help achieve this by increasing staff diversity and seeking multiple perspectives. Balance suggests a concern for issues surrounding the content of the story, types of sources and overall content student media covers in the span of a year. Likewise, objectivity exists on both the micro and macro levels.
Staff manual process
Editors should engage staff members in ongoing discussions about balance and objectivity, including their definitions and impact on the publication. These discussions should be applied at every level of the publication process, from selecting staff, to generating story ideas, to reporting and writing, and to the visual content creation and photography.
Suggestions
• Staff members should discuss and come to consensus on what both “balance” and “objectivity” will look like. How will the staff measure these goals? What does success in this area look like?
• Keeping tabs on how different members of the student body respond to both the content and news gathering process of student media is important, as responses may be an early warning sign balance and objectivity are out of whack.
• Students should explore and consider what standards professionals use to measure balance and objectivity with consideration to how those standards might work on their own staff.
• A guideline for clearly labeling opinion content so consumers can separate objective from subjective content also aids in maintaining balance and objectivity.
Resources
The Next Journalism’s Objective Reporting, Nieman Reports
The Lost Meaning of ‘Objectivity’, American Press Institute
Tools to Manage Bias, American Press Institute
Principles of Journalism, Pew Research Center
Think Like A Journalist, News Trust
Lesson: With Freedom of the Press Comes Great Responsibility, Journalism Education Association
Balance and Objectivity, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
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