News deserts 2/4
My original blog idea started as a simple little suggestion to encourage high school student journalists to cover school board meetings and educational topics in communities without commercial media – those rural and urban areas considered news deserts. But it’s grown much bigger than that. These will be the weekly installments to follow the story.
Student journalists’ role in reporting on education grows where there are News Deserts
Part 1: We’ll explore what happened when a student reporter offered a story about her school to a local “news and digital marketing platform.” It was posted – and then….
Part 2: What do those involved with student media legal issues say about this? We’ll talk to the Student Press Law Center about what rights such young journalists have.
Part 3: How do the hyperlocal web outlets see their role when working with students – or do they see that as a possibility at all?
Part 4: Are there ways we – advisers and journalism teachers – can help students and communities get vital information, especially about local education? How can we educate those who might be working with student journalists but have no background in scholastic media and student rights and responsibilities?
Part 2 blog
How far off campus does censorship’s impact reach
by Candace Bowen, MJE
The idea of having high school journalists fill the void in communities that have lost their local media sounds simple and fairly logical. This is especially true when it comes to covering school board meetings and issues like building safety.
If a community has no local media to do this – if the area is what is considered a “news desert” — citizens would have a hard time making informed choices when they vote about local issues. Perhaps publishing more about school curriculum and district policies in area student media and disseminating it to the community would be a good idea.
Also, in more and more places, hyperlocal often grant-funded news sites are appearing, and they sometimes look for student journalists who are on the “inside” to help with this reporting. Often that’s college students they recruit, but, more recently, it’s also high school journalists. This is a great idea but often has some challenges, as Part 1 of this blog showed.
When a media outlet agrees to print a student article, the long arm of the school might try and even succeed in preventing that from happening. What if the article “makes the school look bad”? What if administrators think they can censor work like that?
Thus, the question to explore in this week’s blog: Can a school legally censor such student-written stories when they are published by news sites that have nothing to do with the school?
“If students are going to be engaging in a total third-party activity in reference to the school district, if it is off campus, not using any sort of campus equipment, not during school hours,” Gaston-Falk said, … these things typically separate the activity from the school district. “The school has less of an expectation, less ability to regulate speech off campus,” he said.
The good news, in a word, is NO, they can’t, according to Jonathan Gaston-Falk, staff attorney with the Student Press Law Center. Even if a student has written about the school district, some things typically separate him or her from being under the school’s control.
“If students are going to be engaging in a total third-party activity in reference to the school district, if it is off campus, not using any sort of campus equipment, not during school hours,” Gaston-Falk said, … these things typically separate the activity from the school district. “The school has less of an expectation, less ability to regulate speech off campus,” he said.
A Supreme Court case from June 2021, B.L. v. Mahanoy, addressed this. According to the Student Press Law Center website, “Of particular concern — particularly since the arrival of social media and other online speech — has been the debate over how much, if any, authority school officials should have over a student’s speech when they are outside of school. This case is about where to draw the line.”
The Court ruled that the Mahanoy school district violated Levy’s First Amendment rights because her SnapChat post, repeatedly using an expletive about not making varsity cheerleading, did not appear to have created a disruption and was created off campus and outside school hours.
Thus, could a school communications officer or other administrator have any legal right to demand a professionally run community news site remove such student work?
That seems pretty unlikely, Gaston-Falk said.
If the adults running those news sites don’t know about students’ First Amendment rights, and the students themselves don’t know their rights, unlawful censorship could easily happen.
Gaston-Falk encourages students, even those working for news outlets beyond their high schools, to contact the Student Press Law Center with their legal concerns.
Adults at the news outlets are also encouraged to contact SPLC lawyers and find out when an administrator’s authority ends inside the schoolhouse gates.
“If the adults running those news sites don’t know about students’ First Amendment rights, and the students themselves don’t know their rights, unlawful censorship could easily happen.
Part 3 of the series will explore the knowledge and views of some of the adults who run these websites and how they see their role when working with student journalists.