Student decision-making: Learning to act ethically
by Jeff Kocur
The student government at my school made a questionable attempt to spice up our March Madness spirit week, and the assistant principal let it happen.
He is new this year, and it was a refreshing presence of ethics from the assistant principal’s office, which has previously ruled with a pretty heavy hand.
I saw the whole thing happen as I waited to meet with the student government adviser.
The students wanted to designate a spirit day called “Bros versus Hipsters.”
Our school is quite diverse and the assistant principal, himself a black man, was sitting down with the student government students to discuss what kind of message might be portrayed when students dress up like a bro. In our school and in our community, a bro would be closely affiliated with inner city culture, and we had a history of other incidents with sports teams full of white boys dressing up with do rags and such in the name of spirit.
The assistant principal listened, presented his concerns, and then allowed the students to make the decision about changing the spirit day.
The decision was unanimous to keep the spirit day, and they hung signs up within a day to advertise for the next week’s spirit.
It didn’t take more than a day for the student government members to remove the bro designation after they received some negative feedback including a homemade sign taped to their spirit day signs that read “just because we are black does not make us bros” or something to that extent
I spoke with the assistant principal, a man I am still getting to know. I told him how much I appreciated his process with the students, and his response was encouraging.
He explained his principle is that he can’t come into an environment and tell kids how to act ethically because then they aren’t practicing ethics; they are just following orders. They aren’t growing as people if they aren’t allowed to do some questionable things and perhaps suffer the consequences of those actions.
Student leaders have not been so empowered before at my school, especially when it comes to the newspaper, so I am encouraged we have someone who is speaking these truths.
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Encouraging diversity in new staff selection
by Megan Fromm
For most publications staffs around the country, the post-spring-break season is officially new staff recruitment time—the chance to build the ideal team for next school year. Applications start rolling in, would-be editors wait anxiously for their new assignments and advisers endure the emotional rollercoaster of deciding who belongs where and why.
Typically, requirements such as editing skills, leadership potential, design ability and time commitments take precedence when selecting a new staff. But what about ideology? What about personal perspectives or cultural understandings? Building the right publications team demands a deep understanding not only of your students technical skills, but also of their personalities, dispositions and background.
Advocating for diversity among your staff members is not just the politically correct thing to do—it should be an ethical imperative. When your staffers’ family background, religious ideologies or cultural upbringing reflect a range of experiences, your publication is more likely to exhibit that same diversity.
If you haven’t yet considered how diversity plays a part in your staff-building process, consider taking a survey of your current students and potential staffers or making a diversity reflection part of your application requirement. The point is not to force students to answer questions about politics or religion or race, but rather to encourage them to open up about personal perspectives that demonstrate and celebrate their own uniqueness.
Ask questions like:
- What is most important to you outside school?
- What cliques or stereotypes do you feel you most relate to? Which ones least define you? Why?
- What are you doing (or where are you physically) when you feel most “yourself?”
- Where (or to whom) do you go for inspiration?
If all the responses sound eerily similar, you might want to rethink your recruitment strategies or the students you target for your publications programs. On the other hand, if the reflections show a range of distinct answers, consider how those students might help encourage the same diversity in coverage by being a part of your publication.
Be sure you give students a chance to authorize your “release” of this information to returning staff members who might be helping in the recruitment/selection process. And, when your staff is finally complete, encourage members to share these reflections during team-building.
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Building a credible brand: Stick to the facts
by Candace and John Bowen
April 1. April Fools.
JEA listservians have carried out a lively discussions on the merits and demerits of publishing April Fools editions. SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte even said to keep his center’s phone number and e-mail address handy if students published such an issue. 
Tough decision. Some commercial media publish such pieces. Why not scholastic media?
We think there are two core reasons for not publishing an April Fools issue:
• The information is known to be false. We spend the rest of the school year developing our credibility over controversy and defending students’ rights and obligation to print the truth. Then in one day we throw caution to the wind and go with information that is not only untrue but even could be taken to be misleading.
• We give others the right to know what is coming. Prior review. Prior approval. We do this, in some cases, with the best of intentions, so sources will not be caught unaware, and to make sure information is not too far out of line. We might even mix the untrue with the true, hoping our audiences can tell the difference. This scares us. We, including those of us carrying out JEA’s official position, argue and rant daily about the educational dangers of prior review. So in this case we want to say, here, check it out ahead of time? What will we say to those, now used to prior review, when they ask for it on something of substance?
Various journalism experts stress that ethical journalists do not add what is not there.
That includes making up information that is not true, or real.
Think about what you want your brand, your reputation, to be. Stick to credible journalism.
Modified and reposted from an original piece March 2, 2010.
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The hits never stop coming
Scholastic journalism’s focus this year is and should be on the 25th anniversary of Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier and the issues it helped spawn, from outright censorship to elimination of programs and teachers.Next year brings two notable anniversaries, both of on the results of censorship and other issues that limited – and continue to limit – journalism programs around the country.
Next year brings two notable anniversaries, both on the results of censorship and other issues that limited – and continue to limit – journalism programs around the country.
“Captive Voices,” published in 1974, is out of print, but available on Amazon. It will be 40 years since this expose first helped the public become aware of censorship and attitudes that limited student expression, and pointed to the importance of journalism education in America’s schools.
This study also brought about the Student Press Law Center, journalism education’s foremost legal support for teachers, students and communities in their search for free expression and civic engagement.
“Death By Cheeseburger,” published in 1994, out of print but available online here, focused on the health of American’s scholastic journalism programs 20 years after “Captive Voices.” Created around censorship of a story on school cafeteria food, the book included examination of scholastic journalism in much the same approach as “Captive Voices.” It marked the real beginning of commercial media putting forth resources to study, as well as improve, scholastic journalism on many levels.
Careful reading – and we all should revisit these books – will reveal issues fought 40 and 20 years ago still exist and still demand our attention as journalism educators.
We note these studies today because we must remain vigilant about the issues they raised.
• Advisers continue to lose their jobs for a myriad of reasons. For example, in Illinois, an adviser was RIFed (reduction in force) because of finances, the board said. The adviser says differently. His situation is certainly not the only one. For more information, go here and here. For information about a California adviser fearing retaliation, go here.
• Complaints about journalistic coverage and content continue as well. At Mountain View, Calif., students published a section on teen sex issues and some members of the community raised intense objection. Pro-student speakers and opponents discussed the issue at a board meeting. To date, school officials support the students right to make content decisions.
For information, see:
—Mountain View High School student newspaper’s sex stories raise parent ire
—Debate over sex education column defines us
––High school paper’s sex and relationships article stirs up controversy
Because the hits like these keep coming, we cannot become complacent. We must celebrate and support those who contribute to our successes.
The Student Press Law Center received an Education Writer’s Association second place national award for “FERPA Fact” in the Best Blog category by a nonprofit or advocacy organization.
Frank LoMonte, in an email to the SPLC’s Advisory Council, said, “When we created FERPA Fact, we thought we were doing something pretty cool — leveraging the power of humor to get people talking about a serious problem that is in need of reform. We are pleased that others agree.”
We applaud the SPLC for being an unparalleled leader in scholastic journalism’s fight of this ongoing battle that shows no signs of ending.
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Ethical decisions are important,
sometimes carry a cost
by Jeff Kocur
I am encouraged by the stories of some former students who have encountered ethical dilemmas at their college newspapers.
One of my former students resigned as managing editor at a college newspaper on the East Coast after he said he watched his editor-in-chief repeatedly breach standard journalistic ethics in gathering and reporting information. Several other editors accompanied him in his very public resignation.
Good journalists act as a watchdog and expose the truth even though it may have a cost. This journalist had the courage to accept a very personal cost when he saw the editor-in-chief operating in a way that was not acceptable, and he did journalism a favor by standing up to it.
Will it change anything? Will the editor-in-chief understand his breach of ethics? Will he ever work as a professional?
I don’t know.
I do know that my former student, who is enrolled next year at the Medill School of Journalism for a graduate degree at Northwestern University, understands clearly what harm can be done by acting unethically in his profession, and I hope we see more people coming into this profession that see things like he does.
For more information about this situation: http://www.thejustice.org/forum/alleged-sexual-assault-represents-problem-with-greek-life-1.2988498#.UUC0ctHF1uI This commentary in the other campus newspaper at Brandeis discusses the issue at the Hoot, which was one of the three reasons the editor resigned. It also discusses several other things connected to the issue, but not specifically related to the ethics of the editor’s actions.
Read MoreThe Ides of March
by Ellen Austin
What is it about March? Even Shakespeare noticed it, putting the soothsayer’s warning out to Caesar about the time span that begins this week.
So the bad news from the early Ides of March rolls in …
I read with great surprise and shock this weekend the news that a well-known and professionally recognized colleague posted to a Listserv about losing his current position as a journalism adviser at in suburban Chicago.
It reminds me of a quote attributed variously to Saddam Hussein, Stalin, and others of that ilk whose names have become synonymous with suppression: “If you have a person, you have a problem; no person, no problem.”
The ultimate form of censorship is eliminating a person’s ability to do or say the thing which might cause concern. It’s also the pernicious form of censorship that too many high schools and universities have used to quell and control the student voices they really wanted to affect.
That adviser is one of our very best, a leader who has devoted himself not just to his students but to the greater cause of scholastic journalism, including outside-of-school service to JEA and state journalism organizations.
If you’re reading this, know that you are also “skin in this game.” It’s not just about this colleague or others whose names flash by on the marquee of a Listserv. It’s about all of us, and the collective work we do. We work at the flash point in our schools, the place where we really get to see what kind of climate of free expression exists on our campuses. I remember being told by a mentor early on, “Be prepared: you will probably lose your advising job at some point, if you’re doing it right.”
Earlier this week, my colleague Paul Kandell and I are heading over to neighboring Mountain View High School to sit in on the board meeting in which the journ advisers are being asked to discuss their programs. Amy Beare, the adviser to the Mountain View Oracle, will be presenting to the board, with (I hope) a room full of supportive parents and students around her.
It’s Monday, and only a couple of weeks after our celebration of Scholastic Journalism Week. This is hard, but meaningful work that we do.
What am I trying to say here? Guess I don’t really know. Mostly, here’s my Monday note to say that this is a hard hard job — and one which sometimes requires us to say, “How much do I believe in this? How strongly can I stand for what I believe? How willing am I to face the cost that may come with standing?”
Good luck to all of us this week as we go through our classes and our deadlines. I will be crossing my fingers tonight across town in the hopes that a neighboring school board sees that student free expression is a scary, but wonderful thing. Love that U.S. Constitution.
Ellen Austin is Dow Jones News Fund Teacher of the Year for this year
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