Evaluating the use of unnamed sources
Part of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s Constitution Day lessons and activity package:
1. Lesson: THE USE OF ANONYMOUS SOURCES
For any journalist, the use of anonymous sources creates a true predicament—one in which the newspaper’s credibility is on the line, and the reporter takes full responsibility for the authenticity and accuracy of whatever the anonymous source says.
This is a difficult and precarious situation to be in, and it is one all student publications should enter knowing the possibilities.
Primary Common Core: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.7
Secondary Common Core Standard(s) Addressed: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8
21st Century Skills Incorporated: Communication, collaboration critical thinking
Supplies, Technology, Other Materials Needed: Handouts, online resources, computers and recording tools
Length of the Lesson: 125 minutes (3 class periods)
Evaluation tools: Student created products and application
Appropriate for Grades: 9-12
Created by: John Bowen, MJE
Brief description of lesson:
Students will examine the positive and negative potential in the use of anonymous sources, participate in activities examining the roles of anonymous sources and develop policies to guide their future use in local student media.
Read MoreIf you need assistance or information
JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission has a range of information and activities to gain assistance and information for those needing assistance with legal and ethical issues
For legal assistance
• Consider pushing our Panic Button. That action and completion of couple informational questions will alert members of the commission to your situation and they will contact you as soon as possible. They might offer help, they might direct you to information on the commission site or work to put you in touch with additional help.
• Check out our Foundations materials.
• Investigate our wealth of information on Hazelwood, a Teacher’s Kit for Curing Hazelwood and that of the SPLC, with its Cure Hazelwood materials.
• We also have a thorough list of court decisions affecting student expression here.
• Of course, the most reliable and most official resource is the Student Press Law Center. Contact it for specific legal advice and information.
For ethical assistance
The commission offers a range of materials, including:
• Ethical guidelines for online media. This package includes a link to the Social Media Toolkit, a set of lessons and activities to help you move online ethically. It also contains JEA’s guidelines for online media.
• Ethical yearbook guidelines. Ethical issues facing yearbooks often are neglected. This material from some of the nation’s leading yearbook advisers should offer assistance.
• Ethical guidelines for visual reporting. The material provides support for those visual reporting questions that can cause issues with new – and experienced – staffs.
In short, assistance is available. Just be sure to ask.
Our next blog will focus on new information and materials.
Read MoreWhat to look forward to this fall
With the beginning of another new year, we thought it important to let you know what the Scholastic Press Rights Commission has been working on to better meet your legal and ethical needs.
• Our third set of Constitution Day lessons will be available around the first week of September on this site.
• Also available early in September will be the first of weekly blogs on a range of legal and ethical issues such as using FOIA records, news literacy, journalism education and prior review.
• Members of the commission worked with Quill and Scroll to update the Principal’s Guide, which will be available online as well as in print. Date to be announced. To support teachers in helping their administrators with the principal’s Guide, check out Talking Points prepared by commission member Lori Keekley.
• The Tinker Tour announced its itinerary. Follow along here .
• Our second set of reporting called Making a Difference, identifying and evaluating articles that created change in their communities, will also be available on this site later this fall.
• Need legal or ethical advice? Facing prior review? Use the commission’s Panic Button, which will put you in contact with members of the commission.
We have a wide range of information and activities planned to share with you this fall, so stay tuned. In the meantime, let us know your needs; what you would like to know, or questions you have, about law and ethics.
In our next blog, we will share where to find key legal and ethical information, and lesson plans, available from the commission.
Read MoreIt’s all in the words used
Change can be a good thing.
So can responsibility and appropriateness. Add accountability.
Generally, we would also agree cyberbullying – or just bullying – is not a good thing.
However, control in the guise these terms that dictate speech without common definitions and legal framework is not responsible and not appropriate. It is not acceptable. It is not reasonable, another favorite word of control. It is just not acceptable.
And that’s the problem being played out in California’s Lodi School District as debate rages over an imposed social media policy that could remove students from their extracurricular activities for inappropriate expression.
Of course, inappropriate is not defined.
As Bear Creek High’s newspaper editor said, as reported by the Student Press Law Center, “The district has decided that they are allowed to remove me from my extra-curriculars if they do not approve of my opinions,” Williams’ statement reads. “What vexes me most severely is that this contract is not a threat but an ultimatum: students must choose either their rights or their passions and personality. The district has made some foul errs in the past, but this time, they have gone way too far.”
The SPLC also reports California Senator Leland Yee, who authored legislation protecting student expression, wrote in support of student actions.
“While the problem of cyberbullying must be addressed,” Yee said in the SPLC report, “we must do so in a focused manner.” Yee wrote. “The policy of punishing students for saying anything deemed to be ‘inappropriate’ goes too far in restricting student speech. Policies regarding cyberbullying must be carefully and specifically written.”
Not only should cyberbullying and bullying policies be written precisely, with protecting student expression in mind, so should use of terms like inappropriate, responsible and acceptable.
Part of the solution in Lodi’s situation is what seems to be a board move to involve students in the decision-making process. Enough eyes and minds, from students to board members, from the ACLU and senator Leland Yee, might guarantee the policy is reasonable, appropriate and responsible, all with terms precisely definable and agreeable to all.
That would indeed be meaningful change in the learning process.
See here for more information.
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3rd circuit reinforces student expression,
California system goes opposite direction
Two items of note to scholastic media and student expression so far this first full week of August, and the week is just starting. Both issues could be localized into solid stories no matter where your school is.
• I heart boobies: The 3rd circuit ruled en banc Aug. 5 that a PA school’s ban of “I heart boobies” bracelets was unconstitutional because such expression was about political or social issues and did not qualify as lewd speech.
The school had argued that the bracelets were “harmful and confusing” to middle school students, the Student Press Law Center reported. The SPLC also indicated the decision allowed schools to ban speech that is “plainly” lewd and cannot be seen has having a political or social message.
According to the Washington Post’s report, the school’s lawyer said the ruling leaves schools no guidance for interpretation about how to interpret a growing amount of double-entendres they say will cause disruption.
• Restrictive social media policy: The Lodi Unified, California, schools intend to enforce what students call a repressive social media policy requiring students in activities from athletics to clubs to sign before they can participate. The policy, according to a report from a Aug. 5 recordnet.com story, would allow school officials to punish students for social media posts made on or off school grounds, including retweets and likes that the school finds “inappropriate.”
The policy, recordnet.com reports, “The policy cracks down on threats towards other people and other bullying techniques. It allows schools to bench athletes or remove students from clubs if officials learn they have posted inappropriate, profane or sexual language on a social media site – or boasted or endorsed illegal or violent activity.”
The SPLC has called the policy “outlandishly illegal” and cites California laws to support student views.
The Lodi policy is explained more in this article from the Lodi News.
Additional resources:
• Federal court strikes down ‘I (heart) boobies’ ban
http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-easton-boobies-case-decision-20130805,0,3957568.story
•US Appeals court: PA school can’t ban ‘boobies’ bracelets because message isn’t lewd
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-appeals-court-pa-school-cant-ban-boobies-bracelets-because-message-isnt-lewd/2013/08/05/f442bf88-fdee-11e2-8294-0ee5075b840d_story.html
•Appeals court says school can’t ban breast-cancer awareness bracelet
http://www.wisconsingazette.com/breaking-news/appeals-court-says-school-cant-ban-boobies-bracelet.html
•Third circuit appeals court backs students in ‘Boobies’ bracelet case
http://www.splc.org/news/newsflash.asp?id=2594
• #dislike: Lodi Unified students protest social media policy aimed at bullying
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130805/A_NEWS/308050305
• Students railing against social media contract implemented by school district
http://fox40.com/2013/08/02/school-district-forcing-student-athletes-to-sign-social-media-contract/#ixzz2ax4tffnu
* California students pro test social media contract banning ‘inappropriate’ posts
http://www.splc.org/news/newsflash.asp?id=2595
• Lodi Unified district social contract
http://www.splc.org/pdf/LUSD_social_media_contract.pdf
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The time is now
Mary Beth Tinker addresses student and advisers at the Ohio Scholastic Media Association awards banquet April 5. (photo by Melinda Yoho)
Individuals and groups still have one day to help ensure The Tinker Tour: The Power of an Armband happens next fall. The “Tinker Tour” is a bus trip across the country to promote youth voices, free speech and a free press.
The tour’s goal, according to Mary Beth Tinker, tour organizer and plaintiff in the landmark Tinker v DesMoines U. S. Supreme Court decision, is to ” bring real-life civics lessons to schools and communities through my story and those of other young people.”
Every journalism student in the country has a real stake in seeing this tour happen, even to the point of bring it to their schools or home towns.
Tinker and co-organizer Mike Hiestand, who assisted countless media students and advisers as a consulting attorney for the Student Press Law Center, hope to start the tour on Constitution Day next fall and spend three to six months touring, depending on funding.
Pledging your financial support within the next 31 days will enable your funds to be matched by StartSomeGood, a crowdsourcing fundraiser.
Find out about the Tinker Tour here.
To donate to the Tinker Tour, go here.
As Mary Beth says in her appeal for support, “I made a difference with a simple, black armband. Can you imagine what a 13-year-old could do today with all of the extraordinary speech tools available?”
Join her and the others who believe in student expression as a tool for civic engagement in supporting the Tinker Tour.
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