Check out our new Press Rights Minutes
JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee just added 10 new Press Rights Minutes, bringing the total to 30 available for class and activity use.
Plans are to add more in the immediate future.
Content includes 60 second audio clips on ethics and legal issues, including new pieces on handling sponsored content, creating balance and objectivity, using unnamed sources, developing board media policies and covering death.
For a complete list of clips available, go here.
Clips are also be available each Monday by checking @jeapressrights.
Read MoreInformation worth class discussion
– and action
Looking for information concerning free expression to spark discussion?
Consider these sites:
• What’s the impact of overzealous Internet filtering
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/whats-the-impact-of-overzealous-internet-filtering-in-schools/
• Journalism and public shaming: some guidelines
http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/326097/journalism-and-public-shaming-some-guidelines/
• Expulsion of two OK students over video leads to Free speech debate
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/us/expulsion-of-two-oklahoma-students-leads-to-free-speech-debate.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0
• Sunshine Week 2015 ideas and activities from SPJ
http://www.spj.org/sunshineweek.asp
• Sunshine Week Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/SunshineWeek
• Sunshine Week lessons and activities
http://www.schooljournalism.org/sunshine-week-2014-activities-and-resources/
Honor – and elevate – all programs
during Scholastic Journalism Week
by John Bowen
With Scholastic Journalism Week starting Feb. 22, it would serve us well to note SPLC executive Frank LoMonte’s words in this week’s Education Week.
LoMonte covers a number of points he suggests disrespect and trivialize high school journalism: mistreating female scholastic journalists, establishing the lowest, barely legal level of freedom for scholastic media and undermining the news-literacy obligation of a high school education.
As we rightfully celebrate our strengths in scholastic journalism next week, we should also heed LoMonte’s points so we help others reach the levels of scholastic journalism programs we honor.
Check out a story here about such a situation where the principal is quoted as saying, “The school paper here at school is mine to control.”
Examine LoMonte’s thoughts, compare with the comments of the principal, and commit ourselves to elevate all journalism programs as they strive to reach the uncensored educational quality of the ones we honor most.
Read MoreDon’t shoot (just) the messenger
in Williams’ fall from grace
By Megan Fromm, CJE
When Brian Williams apologized on air for misremembering his involvement in a direct-fire incident during the Iraq war, critics and media pundits alike were quick to toss him off his pedestal. We may never know whether Williams intentionally misled his audience or truly suffered from a lapse in memory (and judgment), but we would be remiss to blame only Williams for the gross journalistic error.
What happened behind the scenes? Where were the producers? The writers? The fact checkers? Where was the team of journalistic watchdogs looking out not only for the viewers but also for the reputation of one of their own? Williams’ fall from grace was as much their misstep as his own, and we must reconcile that or face repeating our mistakes in the future.
And while we’re making a list of those responsible for this mess, let’s be sure to leave a few blank spaces for us, the average news consumer. The media have been so quick to crucify Williams, but so far as I can tell, they are missing another crucial point: we, the audience, led him to this moment. We pushed him to the edge of his journalistic sensibilities, and we dared him to look over the abyss. As the Washington Post reports, Williams “wanted to both report and entertain,“ and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Today’s news audience demands this duplicity, and in fact, it is the only kind of “journalism” we reward with our attention, our money, and our clicks. We really just want our headline news from Jon Stewart, but we settle for Williams because in some ways it makes us feel better about our news consumption. So, we don’t mind when a journalist gets too personal, or when he or she becomes too much a part of the story. We keep moving the line in the sand about how close is too close. And in those moments, the audience becomes complicit in the choices news media make to vie for our attention.
Striving to meet the expectations of an increasingly fractured and disinterested news audience—while simultaneously aiming for unrealistic profit margins—has encouraged the largest news organizations to dangle precipitously close to the edge of their journalistic morality. It almost comes as no surprise, then, that some lose their footing.
So while it’s easy to criticize Williams for his mistakes (and yes, we should), let’s not forget the part we, as news consumers, have played in this debacle. Sometimes, news is boring. Sometimes, after countless RPGs have been fired on American troops, one more becomes “just another news day.” But that reality exists because too many citizens have abdicated their responsibility to know what’s happening in the world around them regardless of whether it’s inherently sexy, interesting, or tabloid-worthy.
In the case of Brian Williams, it turns out no one really shot the messenger, so perhaps we shouldn’t, either. At least not without looking in the mirror first.
Read MoreOur best dream: start from the beginning
An article in the Washington Times titled “Liberals’ worst nightmare: South Carolina schools move toward pro-gun curriculum,” caught our attention tonight.
SC Rep. Alan Clemmons’ proposal would allow, according to the Washington Times, “reasonable pro-gun expression by students.” The proposal would require instruction on the right to bare arms for at least three consecutive weeks in the school year.
We applaud a legislator farsighted enough to want students to be aware of the Constitution and to apply its tenets.
We just think he started the process one too late.
He should start with the First Amendment not the Second.
We can see the model now:
• From his proposal: essay contests and Second Amendment Day allowing “reasonable” Second Amendment expression in school without fear of punishment, The Washington Times reported.
• Our addition: essay contests and a First Amendment Day allowing “reasonable” free expression emphasizing student freedom of expression in and out of school for each school year.
• From his proposal: According to the Washington Times, Clemmons said, “I believe that all students in American should be taught civics and the importance of our constitutional freedoms.”
• Our addition: What he said. But start with the First.
Scholastic journalists often
face demands like Delauter’s
I strongly encourage every student publication adviser being told his or her students can’t use names or photos in their print or online publications because of FERPA (or some other manufactured privacy justification) to read the Frederick News Post’s editorial on this crazy Frederick County council member, Kirby Delauter, and his demand for media not to use his name without permission.
• Delauter to the News-Post: Don’t use my name without permission