A chance to send a unique message about scholastic media and journalism
by Stan Zoller, MJE
What do our colleagues at school think of when it comes to journalism? On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, we have the unique opportunity to let them know that scholastic journalists are not just students involved in a school media for fun.
They have the distinct privilege of practicing what the Obama Administration is imploring countries around the world to do — practice a free and responsible press. With the bulk of the country’s practicing journalists scholastic journalists, we need to make administrators and teachers aware of the unique message sent by the SPLC and 39 other media and education organizations to the Obama Administration through a half-page ad in the April 15 editions of The Washington Post.
I will distribute a letter under the auspices of the Illinois Journalism Education Association, of which I am vice president, explaining the significance of the event in a letter. I will distribute the letter to all faculty and staff members. The Washington Post ad will be included.
If you would like a copy of the letter to customize for your school or to distribute to others in your area, you can download it here.
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World Press Freedom Day letter includes scholastic media
The Washington Post today published an “open letter” to President Obama and Secretary Clinton today from the Student Press Law Center, JEA and 36 other journalism and free-speech organizations urging them to declare their support for freeing “the other half” of America’s press.
Our hope is scholastic media programs will download the letter and develop Action Plans and lessons around it to show support for freedom of expression for scholastic media.
World Press Freedom Day is May 3 and is hosted in the US this year.
Read MoreFreedom for the world’s press must include scholastic media, too
May 3. Washington, D. C.
World Press Freedom Day.
The first time since UNESCO started the event 18 years ago the United States will host it.
And the perfect time to call for its tenets to be extended to scholastic media in a country that promotes freedom – and responsibility – for every other nation’s media.
We join the SPLC and 38 other journalism and free-speech organizations in an “open letter” to President Obama and Secretary Clinton urging them to use this occasion to declare their support for freeing “the other half” of America’s press.
On the eve of the JEA/NSPA scholastic media convention, JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission urges you to do the same. Write an editorial. Create a community forum. Discuss the review and censorship of student media – if it occurs – in your school’s communities and show how it limits education and twarts critical thinking.
Step up and join these 38 organizations in fighting to extend press freedom to a significant group of Americans – you.
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Overland situation settled – for now – although questions remain
According to both the Denver Post and the Student Press Law Center, the Overland Scout will retain its adviser and lose prior review – for the remainder of this year’s issues.
Unsettled, however, is what happens next year, both to the Scout and to the adviser.
“School and district officials maintain that the situation was a misunderstanding and that the newspaper was never shut down,” the Post reported April 4. “Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said that Lundie (the school’s principal) was unaware of a separate printing fund the district provides for printing newspapers and thought that they did not have the budget for further issues.”
SPLC attorney advocate Adam Goldstein said the problems have not been resolved, but that it was a good first step.
“Firing the adviser in May for what the students wrote isn’t more permissible than it is in March,” he said. “We still need assurances that this program will still exist as vibrant as it ever has.”
Unanswered questions remain:
• The school reportedly wants to move the existing publication online, although it now will not permit online student media to use last names. That policy would have to be changed, and it is not known how an online publication would fit into existing student media policies.
• With such a move, will the district retain the adviser or seek someone else?
• Will the district attempt to reinstate prior review?
• Will the idea of moving from print to online journalism affect other schools in the district?
• Will the principal’s idea for change alter existing concepts of journalism the district teaches and students practice at other schools?
For the latest information, please check out these sources:
• Overland High School official statement from the principal and official policy statement
• Overland High School relents
• Overland principal: student newspaper to continue publishing
Read MoreProfessional allies against censorship
Those looking for allies in their fight against censorship should consider professional organizations.
Check out support the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists gave students of the Overland Scout today.
The Board of Directors of the Colorado Pro Chapter of SPJ wrote in their letter to the Cherry Creek District Superintendent and Board, “Specific provisions exist that allow for prior restraint by school administrators, including if a story is obscene, false or libelous. None of these conditions appear to be involved in the Scout case.” Read the entire letter here and here.
Scout student journalists have argued the school prevented publication of an article that could have been published under Colorado law, stopped further publication of the newspaper and removed their adviser. The school has responded with shifting positions but now says the paper will continue to publish.
Even as we continue to support these students and their adviser, we, as advisers, need to be conduits for the importance of student free and journalistically responsible expression. We must model it, teach it and lobby for it whether we face review and restraint ourselves or are pinnacles of freedom.
Start with administrators; start with the community. But no matter where we start, we must illuminate the fact that the basis of a continuing, intelligent democracy lives and grows with a strong and viable journalism program. It starts where students are challenged to think, to make decisions and to be responsible as they apply what they learn without prior review or restraint.
Anything less – anything – undermines the core of freedoms we say we cherish and those in other lands fight to attain.
Follow the Colorado situation by checking these links.
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Links to information about Overland Scout situation
Those interested in the censorship issue at Overland High in Colorado can follow the events by checking the sites below:
NEW LINKS:
— As school backpedals, Colorado students still fighting newspaper censorship
— Overland high school newspaper threatened with closure to survive after ACLU complaint
— Colorado High School newspaper to shut down, principal didn’t like story about student death
• Denver Post
— Overland High’s principal trying to stop the student presses
— Overland principal not blocking student paper over content, district says
• SPLC
—Colorado principal fires adviser, shutters newspaper
• Aurora Sentinel
—Overland Scout staff protest principal’s moves
• Denver Daily News
• Huffington Post
— Colorado principal nixes student newspaper for knowing too much
• Miscellaneous pieces
—Censorship 101: Angry Colorado principal shuts down high school paper
• Scout article about the student’s death
• Censor This Facebook page by Overland Scout students
• 45words comments
• Fight for the Right to Write
• ACLU
• Petition against censorship at Overland
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