The R-Word and the WaPo
by Matt Schott August 22, the Washington Post editorial board decided to no longer use the term Redskins in its editorials (I believe it will live on in the sports and news sections).
This is a decision that seems to be pretty roundly lauded, particularly by Native American groups who’ve been fighting for this change for years. And it is a decision to be lauded. Continuing to use a racial epithet as a team name is unacceptable.
However, let’s not get hurt ourselves patting the WaPo editorial board on the back for its decisions. While it is, by far, the most prominent editorial board to refuse to do this (and likely one of the most influential), it is not the first.
No, for that, you would need to travel to Pennsylvania.
Specifically, to Neshaminy High School.
Even more specifically, you’d need to visit with the student editors of The Playwickian, Neshaminy’s student newspaper. [pullquote]While it is, by far, the most prominent editorial board to refuse to do this (and likely one of the most influential), it is not the first. No, for that, you would need to travel to Pennsylvania. Specifically, to Neshaminy High School.[/pullquote]
In a decision that raised the ire of students, their principal and their school board, the editorial board of The Playwickian decided to no longer use the term Redskins (which is the school mascot) more than a year ago. A year.
And for that past year, they’ve been locked in battles with those aforementioned groups, fighting the principal who overturned their ban. The editorial board continued to defy its principal, threatening legal action if the school district continued fighting the ban.
The students’ mettle was tested when a student submitted a letter to the editor using the word, disagreeing with the editorial board’s decision. The editors chose to run it with the word Redskins changed to R——-.
Administrators ordered it to run unedited. The editorial board pulled it, choosing to run white space instead. The timing from the WaPo dovetails nicely with these students’ fight.
While I’d imagine this was announced because the NFL season kicking off in early September, this is also the time of year where students head back to school.
It would be great, as the student editors at Neshaminy headed back to their student newsroom – if the Washington Post, one of the vanguards of American journalism in the last 50 years – would provide a tip of the hat to these student journalists who showed them where the path of right was on this issue.
Perhaps the Post could send a letter to the students on staff, offer some advice or something of that sort. So often in the scholastic journalism classroom, it is students who look to the professionals for ideas and inspiration.
In this case, it’s the professionals who stand on the shoulders of giants. They should acknowledge this.
Read MoreInstead of removing students from the solution, administrators should empower them to figure it out
What’s best for students? We return to that essential question constantly as decision-makers in every realm of education. In the “yearbook yikes” dilemma featured in this month’s Ethical Educator column in School Administrator magazine, the solutions address what may be best for one student but fail to mention what’s best for many others.
Where are the student editors in these discussions?
The opportunity to plan and produce student media is a valuable learning experience from start to finish. The communication, creativity, collaboration and critical thinking students on a yearbook staff experience continues well beyond the final page submission. Deciding how to handle the altered photo and ethical lapse is an essential piece of their learning.
Because students should be responsible for all content decisions, they also should be accountable to their audience and to each other. If the superintendent takes action to remedy the yearbook error, students are deprived of a major lesson in critical thinking and decision-making skills tied to journalistic standards and civic responsibility.
Ideally, student journalists address those standards and responsibilities long before producing even a single yearbook page by creating publication policies. With guidance and support from a trained journalism teacher, students define and put in writing what they stand for and why. The policy then serves as a guide — a commitment to themselves and their audience — for all future decisions. It includes what they will cover and why as well as how to handle errors, omissions, corrections and more.
If the students involved in the “yearbook yikes” dilemma have no such policy, this is an important lesson for them. Instead of removing students from the solution, administrators should empower them to figure it out and so they learn and grow from the process. As editors identify who was responsible for the altered photo and how to handle it (both internally with consequences and improved staff procedures as well as publicly and with the affected student), they can reevaluate their process and make it right.
Plenty of great resources exist to aid in this process, such as the Model Code of Ethics from the National Scholastic Press Association, which charges student journalists to be accountable with a commitment to admit mistakes and publicize corrections. The Society of Professional Journalists also offers an extensive collection of policies journalism teachers can use with their students in these important discussions. The bottom line is that this dilemma affects many more students than just the one pictured in the yearbook, and administrators should consider the long-term effects as well as the shorter-term needs of addressing a parent complaint.
As a student media adviser, I know firsthand the inaccuracy of Sarah MacKenzie’s claim that “… most yearbooks are already gathering dust on shelves only to be retrieved for class reunions, if at all.” Even months after distribution day, students cart yearbooks to school events, pull them from their backpacks daily, poring over pages together to read stories and carry them on vacations to review the personal memories, photos and details of times passed.
That’s all the more reason student editors should strive to meet journalistic standards and operate with integrity, and absolutely why student editors should be accountable for their decisions, including determining the best solution to this and any other dilemma. With a stronger emphasis on their “why” as a staff, training and support from a qualified adviser and empowerment to solve problems based on their own critical thinking, students learn important lessons and make better decisions.
And that, of course, is what’s best for all students.
Sarah Nichols, MJE, M.Ed
teacher/adviser, Whitney High Student Media
2010 National Yearbook Adviser of the Year
vice president, Journalism Education Association
@sarahjnichols
Updates on scholastic issues across the nation
–ajc.com wrote this piece about the issue of the “R” word.
Current First Amendment issues worth noting
Looking for discussion starters for the end of school?
For the latest on three nationally ongoing censorship issues, check out:
Fond du Lac, WI
http://www.first-draft.com/
http://wisoapbox.blogspot.com/
http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/guest/ben-bromley-lessons-in-school-censorship/article_3d46f96e-cb4c-563a-b802-046717376398.html
Neshaminy, PA
• Neshaminy board tables controversial publication policy changes
http://stoganews.com/news/neshaminy-board-tables-controversial-publication-policy-changes/13803/
• Controversial Neshaminy policy going back to committee
http://levittownnow.com/2014/05/23/controversial-neshaminy-policy-going-back-to-committee/
• Why forcing a student newspaper to use a racial slur is wrong on so many levels
http://bangordailynews.com/2014/05/12/opinion/why-forcing-a-student-newspaper-to-use-a-racial-slur-is-wrong-on-so-many-levels/
• Playwickian staff implores Neshaminy board not to adopt policy preventing student newspaper from banning use of ‘Redskin’ mascot name
http://www.buckslocalnews.com/articles/2014/05/07/the_advance/news/doc536a78353af44687155661.txt
Heber City, UT
• Altered yearbook photos at Utah high school spark controversy
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/altered-yearbook-photos-utah-high-school-spark-controversy-n118496
• School alters girls’ yearbook photos to cover bare skin, is not sorry
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-girls-yearbook-photos-altered-20140529-story.html
• Photoshop a yearbook photo neckline, and you tell a teen to be someone else
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/photoshop-yearbook-photo-neckline-teen-school-utah
• ‘Shoulder-shaming’ girls at Utah high school: Why the big coverup?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2014/0530/Shoulder-shaming-girls-at-Utah-high-school-Why-the-big-coverup-video
• Students say altered yearbook photos meant to shame them (see related stories)
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58000870-78/baum-photos-montoya-yearbook.html.csp#pd_a_8085098
In related coverage of journalism ethics now and in the fall, the question of how altering pictures in student media affects journalism as a whole and creates the potential of multiple ethical lessons.
• Editing yearbook photos not uncommon, says printer
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58004843-78/yearbook-photos-utah-journalism.html.csp
Read More
Teacher Appreciation Week
recommendation for principals
Dear Sir or Madam:
Here’s a little suggestion for Teacher Appreciation Week gift-giving. It will make your journalism teacher happier. Besides it will make you and, most important, your students a lot happier.
My suggestion: An open forum, no-prior-review policy where students, under the guidance of a trained journalism teacher, make the content decisions.
All that freedom sounds scary, you say? Having a Main Office set of eyeballs look over student media before it goes out may sound like a good idea, but doing so has often been a whole lot scarier for some. Consider these lessons from the archives of the Student Press Law Center showing how some principals learned the hard way:
Read MoreNational scholastic journalism groups’ position on Neshaminy policy proposal
As the national organizations of journalism educators committed to the training of future journalists and the preparation of citizens for life in our democracy, we write to express our vigorous opposition to the proposed policy changes under consideration by the Neshaminy Board of School Directors that relate to school-sponsored student publications
We find the proposed policy changes, which give school officials virtually unlimited authority to censor student journalism even of the highest quality, educationally unsound, constitutionally insufficient and morally indefensible. They are inconsistent with the student media policies recommended by national education experts.
Read More