A message from Marion: Attacks on press freedom have no limits
By Stan Zoller, MJE
The next time you’re grousing because an administrator wants to review a story or, worse yet, an entire issue of your student publication, think of Eric Meyer.
And what the heck, think of Joan Meyer too.
Do the names ring a bell? Hopefully, but sadly, they should.
Eric Meyer is the editor and publisher of the Marion County Record which saw its offices raided by Marion, Kansas police and all of its equipment, records and notes grabbed.
They also raided the home of Joan Meyers, Eric’s 98-year-old mother, co-owner and matriarch of the Record.
The stress of the raid of both the Record’s office and her home was reportedly a contributing factor to her death on Aug. 12, a day after the raids.
So, what does this have to do with scholastic journalism?
Everything.
I bristle when someone says “Oh, they’re just high school journalists.”
Let’s clarify that. Scholastic journalists are journalists who just happen to be in high school. And while they may be enamored with attending conferences, entering contests and winning awards, the root of it all is this: Scholastic journalists are practicing journalism.
They are not immune to the barrage of attacks on journalism and journalists. The raids on the Marion County Record and the Meyers’ home, which Eric Meyer shared with his mother, is an assault on journalism as a whole.
Whether it’s a large urban paper, a local suburban newspaper, a well-funded high school paper, or a bare-bones publication in an inner-city school, the raids in Marion, Kansas hit home.
Obviously, they were an assault on the First Amendment. No one can, or should, argue that. More so, experts are noting that the raids were also an assault on the Fourth Amendment.
Marion, Kansas is a town of around 2,000 people, the size of many United States high schools. The Marion County Record, by virtue of reaching outside Marion’s city limits, has a circulation that eclipses 4,000, a number that has grown since the raids. Papers of all sizes are subject to assaults on press freedom.
In addition to First and Fourth amendment rights, the raids seemingly violated Kansas’ FOI laws.
So why is this important to scholastic journalists and scholastic journalism programs? FOI and Sunshine laws do not carry age requirements as they are in place to enhance openness and transparency by government agencies, whether village boards, city councils, school boards, park boards, county boards or state legislatures.
A stellar piece posted on Aug. 14 by Tom Jones, senior media writer for the Poynter Institute, explicitly and elegantly details the impact of the raids on press freedom. It should be required reading in all scholastic journalism classrooms. Also worth taking a look at is the PBS Newshour interview with Eric Meyer, also on Aug. 14. To no surprise, his thoughts are compelling.
Professional media doesn’t have the Student Press Law Center to go guide and support them. Instead, they need to rely on resources such as the Society of Professional Journalists’ Legal Defense Fund, which provides resources to fight situations like those endured by the Marion County Record.
All of the sites offer insights and resources about the assault facing journalism whether, as mentioned, it’s a high school newspaper, yearbook or a major media outlet.
At the end of the day, journalists are all in this together.
For scholastic journalists, it may be a somewhat arduous fight if prior review or prior restraint shows its ugly head.
But unfortunately, at the end of the day, it’s everyone’s fight.
The reality is this: scholastic journalists must not only learn about journalism, they must vigilantly practice it and, now more than ever, defend it.
Read MoreWhat’s old is still new
by Stan Zoller, MJE
Another step in removing the shackles
Hawaii is the sixteenth state to pass New Voices protection recently. The task to protect all student news media is not new and is unfinished. The signing in Hawaii is a huge success, but there is still a long way to go. Today’s students represent a new generation, but their voices aren’t new – they’re continuing – as is the struggle for press freedom. Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.co
Amidst the recent onslaught of disturbing news stories – whether it’s the carnage in Ukraine, the killing of 10 shoppers in grocery story or the gut-wrenching and senseless murders of 19 fourth-grade students and two teachers in a Texas elementary school – we try to look for a ray, if possible, of good news.
It’s not easy.
Read MoreCreating inquiring minds or censoring them?
A divided nation faces book and curriculum censorship, plus moves to prohibit discussion of anti-racist ideas in schools
by Candace Bowen, MJE
Can you teach controversial books in your class?
I always warn my students how dangerous question leads are and how a wrong answer can scare a reader away. But the question you just read is now my abiding concern – and should be yours, too, if you think students need to be challenged to think and to expand their minds.
A New York Times article announcing readers’ choices of the best 25 books in the last 125 years sparked a discussion on my Facebook page recently that should be a warning to everyone. The books ranged from “Charlotte’s Web” to “1984,” and “The Grapes of Wrath” to “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Not many comments into the strand, an English and journalism teacher, Sandy Cato, from the Northwest, wrote, “This list is interesting to me because of how few of these we would ever be able to get approved for use in school classrooms.”
“They are problematic,” she explained further, “and so many districts have become subtle censors by simply not approving or refusing to purchase important texts. Districts seem to choose to placate rather than educate if it risks conflict.”
Others added concerns related to similar issues – especially books that cover anything about race, sex/gender or politics. Some teachers had even been threatened or told flat out not to teach certain books. Now that more and more parents and community members are attending school board meetings, the battles about what to teach – and what NOT to teach – have even made headlines. The Intellectual Freedom Blog of the American Library Association covered more than 20 like these in its Jan. 7, 2022, posting:
- The Atlanta Journalism-Constitution reported a member of the Georgia General Assembly is writing legislation to “shield children from age-inappropriate materials,” such as transgender issues, even though a national survey showed 20 percent of transgender and nonbinary youths reported attempting suicide in the previous year.
- The Mississippi Free Press wrote about its state auditor supporting possible legislation to “ban educators from teaching ‘anti-racist’ ideas in schools.” This he posted on Facebook.
- NBC News focused its online article about a Texas school district that had pulled two award-winning graphic novels by Black author and illustrator Jerry Craft, one of many Black authors whose books are being banned, parents claiming they teach critical race theory.
The current “This American Life” podcast for Jan. 7, 2022, is “Talking While Black,” with Act Two devoted to an interview with Jerry Craft, who is really amazed that his “New Kid” graphic novel was so controversial. From a transcript, Chana Joffe-Walt, who interviewed him said, “What’s so interesting to me about this book in particular being kind of drawn into this CRT battle that’s supposedly about history. But your book is not a history book. This is literally just you writing down the story of your life.
Jerry Craft replies, “Right, yeah. It literally is based on what I actually see. There’s nothing that I haven’t lived myself.”
Now that more and more parents and community members are attending school board meetings, the battles about what to teach – and what NOT to teach – have even made headlines. The Intellectual Freedom Blog of the American Library Association covered more than 20 like these in its Jan. 7, 2022, posting.
The American Library Association’s Banned Books Week annually points out the harm of limiting student access to books and supports students’ right to explore and learn. About last year’s theme – “Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us” — the ALA website pointed out, “Sharing stories important to us means sharing a part of ourselves. Books reach across boundaries and build connections between readers. Censorship, on the other hand, creates barriers.”
For 2022, Banned Books Week is Sept. 18-24.
There is hope, though. Further down in my Facebook post, Jenna Bates, journalism and English teacher at Bio-Med Science Academy in northeast Ohio, said, “It may help a bit to know that it’s not all districts. Where I teach, I — and I alone — decide the curriculum for my ELA course. I’m starting ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ next week (only one student requested an alternate book), and we’ll do ‘The Hate U Give’ later this year. I’m lucky, but I do share your concerns about the profession and what it means to the future.”
When I taught high school English in Illinois, I must admit feeling a certain personal satisfaction when teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a book the librarian removed from my high school library in Des Moines, Iowa, but one that has such important messages to deliver.
Today, I think one step further and wonder if some of our leaders would have been better off if they had read and taken to heart Atticus’s advice: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Books can teach us a lot about each other we might now learn any other way.
For information about teaching controversial books
Want to teach a controversial book but aren’t sure where to start? The Harvard Graduate School of Education has a website called “Usable Knowledge: Relevant research for today’s educators.” A Jan. 9, 2019 post by Jill Anderson, “Bringing Controversial Books into the Classroom,” has a list of six tips and explanations to help.
Read MoreUse a planning tool – Futures Wheel – to build better contextual, meaningful content
Futures Wheels were designed by futurists to see what the future might bring, positive or negative. If positive, the wheels could be used to show how to induce something to happen. If negative, how to prevent that. Can it be a part of journalistic story planning, source acquisition and other types of information processing to craft stories that meet audience needs?
Title
Futures Wheels: Developing and refining journalistic story planning to better identify context, background and meaningful events, empowering journalism’s social responsibilities
Description
A Memorial Day incident in northeastern Ohio this year raised the specter of potential First Amendment violations, opened wounds of racial tension and created ethical questions on issues of media social responsibility. How can students localize the event and issues? How could covering these issues lead to improved audience awareness and journalistic social responsibility?
News planning using futuristic tools can provide essential information and credible leadership empowering journalistic responsibility.
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