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New Voices podcasts
and valuable information

Posted by on Oct 14, 2018 in Blog, Ethical Issues, Legal issues, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

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Looking for information and ideas to challenge students and expand their journalistic experiences, try these first offerings. From challenging concepts to story ideas and approaches, we’ll bring you occasional packages like today’s.

• We’ve launched a new podcast resource from the Scholastic Press Rights Committee — Conversations at the Schoolhouse Gate: The New Voices Podcast!

Our first six episodes are posted. Direct links below; you can find the podcast anywhere you download podcasts, including Apple iTunes and Google Play.

Episode 1 – Neha Madhira – EiC, Eagle Nation Online (Prosper, Tex.)  Neha’s staff faced three rounds of censorship and prior review last year at PHS, and now she’s active in New Voices Texas.
https://pinecast.com/listen/9e9971c1-64ee-4f60-993b-229d9ecc3a3e.mp3

Episode 2 – Steve Listopad – Henderson State Univ. – Steve’s students in North Dakota kicked off the New Voices movement with a successful bipartisan bill in one of the reddest states in the country.

https://pinecast.com/listen/176c0e0f-29ed-4b6c-8d34-24debedd765d.mp3

Episode 3 – Kathy Schrier – Exec. Director, WJEA
The team in Washington were in this fight back in the early 90s, and stuck with it through March 21, 2018, when Governor Jay Inslee signed the New Voices bill into law!
https://pinecast.com/listen/f40e9aaf-bb3d-4b35-b5cc-bccffd0d6ac4.mp3

Episode 4 – SPLC 101

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-at-the-schoolhouse-gate/id1437339628

Episode 6 – Real benefits without review and restraint

Interview with Archer School for Girls administrator Gretchen Warner and student editor Anna Brodsky.

Subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or Stitcher or listen directly from this website.

Articles

Trump’s USA Today op-ed demonstrates why it’s time to unbundle news and opinion  content:  Brought to us by Eli Pariser,  originator of the term “filter bubbles,” this piece raises this  point: “Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the whole premise of bundling together hard news and opinion content under the same brand names and domains. If we believe there’s something special about the processes and norms that create journalism (and I do), publishers should draw a brighter line around it — a line that both people and algorithms can understand.

“Moving opinion content onto separately branded sites wouldn’t mean getting rid of it entirely. But the whole practice of op-edding deserves a shakeup anyway, in an era where anyone can self-publish and content is experienced in an atomized form.”

Do journalists spend too much time on Twitter:  “A new study attempts to get at whether journalists ascribe too much importance to Twitter. Shannon McGregor of The University of Utah and Logan Molyneux of Temple University performed an experiment involving about two hundred journalists—some who use Twitter heavily and some who use it only moderately,” writes Mathew Ingram.

The results are interesting, to say the least.

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Asking questions never goes out of style

Posted by on Sep 3, 2018 in Blog, Legal issues, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

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by Stan Zoller, MJE
A Chicago TV station has the call letters WMAQ. Its origins go back to the 1922 when The Chicago Daily News started the station. Its call letters were known to mean “We Must Ask Questions,” which today would not only be known as solid journalism, but also fact checking.

The Daily News sold the station to NBC in 1931, but the legacy of the call letters continues. Whether it was the intention of William Quinn, publisher of The Chicago Daily News when it started WMAQ to promote good journalism or people just assigned those words to WMAQ, one thing remains constant — asking questions remains a vital part of journalism today.

When journalists – whether students or professional — have even the faintest inkling about something, they need to ask questions. This is true when covering a speech, doing an interview, attending a press conference or a school board meeting.

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What is copyright?

Posted by on Jul 31, 2018 in Law and Ethics, Legal issues, Teaching | 0 comments

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When students violate copyright, they are stealing from the original copyright holder.

This reference area provides information on what copyright and fair use are, provides guidelines and provides best practices and copyright free resources.

 

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5 activities to consider before next fall

Posted by on May 28, 2018 in Blog, Ethical Issues, Legal issues, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

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By John Bowen, MJE

Looking for end-of-year activities to rebuild or revisit how your student media operate, the range and effectiveness of content, no matter the platform?

Consider the following, either now at the end of the year or during summer staff retreats, to help students strengthen your program’s foundation.

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Understanding FERPA QT66

Posted by on May 8, 2018 in Blog, Legal issues, Quick Tips, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

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Guideline:

The school publication will follow the Family Educational Rights and PrIvacy Act (FERPA) as defined by the Student Press Law Center.

Social media post/question:

What information is protected under FERPA?

Key Points/Action

FERPA does limit the specific information schools can release about students, but it doesn’t restrict schools from releasing information in aggregate or without student names attached. When schools use the generic term of “Data Privacy” as a justification for not releasing important records, student journalists must know their rights and know what to ask for.

Stance:

School publication staffs must become familiar with the FERPA laws and their own state’s data privacy laws in order to ensure they can receive as much information as possible in their reporting on the school community.

Reasoning/suggestions:

Many high school journalists have a tough time getting important information and records released to them because the administrators improperly hide behind the FERPA laws or even more generically, they claim data privacy. This leads to stonewalling of students and hiding of data such as discipline information, student performance, crime and safety on campus, and many other topics which would help inform the community. Student publications must know their rights in order to get the best and the most pertinent information in telling the stories of their school

Resources:

://www.splc.org/section/break-ferpa

https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

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Circuit Court decisions support student freedoms QT 64

Posted by on May 2, 2018 in Blog, Legal issues, Quick Tips, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

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Quick Hits: Student First Amendment Rights

Muzzle Hazelwood with strong journalism and status as a limited public forum. (Dean v. Utica Community Schools, 2004)

The principal of Utica High School told the student newspaper, the Arrow, to cut an article by student journalist Katy Dean, as well as an accompanying editorial and an editorial cartoon. The students had written about a couple, Rey and Joanne Frances, who were suing the school district. They claimed the idling diesel buses in the school garage next to their home had caused the husband’s cancer.

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier allows administrators to censor for “legitimate pedagogical concerns.” The principal said the articles were based on “unreliable” sources and that the article was “highly inaccurate.” Perhaps these reasons were given as his legitimate pedagogical concerns.

The students published a black box with the word “Censored” across it in white lettering, and an editorial on censorship. A local newspaper later published Dean’s censored article.

The case was decided in the United States District Court in Katy Dean’s favor because of the Arrow’s status as a limited public forum, and on the quality of the journalism. (This is a different interpretation of “limited public forum” from the Second Circuit in Ochshorn v. Ithaca City School District..

Establishing a Public Forum in Practice and Policy

The judge ruled that the student paper was a public forum, even though it was produced by a class for school credit. He used the nine criteria established in Draudt v. Wooster. Because it was a public forum and therefore under Tinker,[link] not under Hazelwood, the principal had violated the students’ rights.

To determine if the paper was a public forum, the judge looked at the practice of the publication.  In its 25 year history, the officials at the school had never intervened in the editorial process of the publication. The students had no practice of submitting content to school officials for prior review, nor did the faculty adviser regulate the topics the newspaper covered. In practice the paper was a public forum.

School policy also supported the “Arrow’s” status as a public forum. The curriculum guide and the course descriptions provided evidence that it should enjoy the protections of Tinker.

Clarifying When Censorship is Permissible Under Hazelwood

Though the judge ruled the paper was under the Tinker standard, he also closely examined the censored article by Katy Dean using the Hazelwood standards of fairness, research and writing.  He found that, even under Hazelwood, “the suppression of the article was unconstitutional.” The school officials had claimed the work was “inaccurate” because they disagreed with the opinions of people quoted in the story. What the district called “inaccurate” was simply an attempt to disguise “what is, in substance, a difference of opinion with its content,” the judge wrote.  Even under the Hazelwood standard, the officials had violated the students’ rights.

In his decision, the judge quoted President Harry S. Truman: Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

He also quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.”

Dean v. Utica shows two avenues for student journalists to free themselves from Hazelwood. The first is to be a public forum in either “policy or practice.” The second is to produce high quality journalism.

Resources: http://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.getsnworks.com/spl/pdf/deanvutica.pdf

http://www.splc.org/article/2004/11/dean-v-utica-community-schools

http://jea.org/home/curriculum-resources/deancase/

 

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