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Empowerment, making a difference,
is REAL news

Posted by John Bowen on Dec 18, 2017 in Blog, Law and Ethics, News, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Censored news is fake news

by Candace Bowen, MJE
Nearly half of U.S. voters think media fabricate news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released this fall.

Commercial media have been trying to drive that number down, but they’re going to need help from journalists too young to even vote yet. High schools, middle schools and even elementary schools have a new crop of reporters who want to tell real stories – and they might just be the answer to changing such poll results.

Take Hilde Lysiak, at 10 years old the youngest member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Her Orange Street News covers everything about her hometown in Pennsylvania from new businesses opening (and old ones closing) to crime stories with quotes from the police and exact wording from criminal complaints.

[pullquote]Both former Student Press Law Center director Frank LoMonte and JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights website have pointed out that censored news is fake news. If sources give student reporters “facts” meant to deceive, if they withhold information about problems thus preventing an attempt at solving them, if they promote platitudes about a school environment that doesn’t exist, this is surely promoting fake news. And it’s not allowing reporters to cover real news that’s important to them and their communities.[/pullquote]

In SPJ’s September/October Quill magazine, she’s the Q & A member profile. Asked to offer one piece of advice, Lysiak said, “I would say that reporters should always do whatever it takes to stay focused on getting the truth. Don’t pay attention to the haters. They just zap your energy.”

She also applauded her parents for letting her ride her bike “all over town” when she started reporting as a 7-year-old. “If they hadn’t given me that freedom, I wouldn’t be able to report the news like I do. Sometimes I think the best thing parents can do is get out of the way.”

Thousands of miles away in such places as Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNICEF has been empowering “child reporters,” 12 to 16. Their Stories of Innovation website says, “Evidence gathered over three years in the 11 provinces shows that once aware of their rights, children join forces and take up social issues in their schools and communities. . . . Furthermore, the continued observation of children as eloquent players of change makes adults more respectful in regards to children’s needs.”

These are just two examples of young people whose reporting can make a difference. It’s REAL news, not the least bit fake. They have been allowed and encouraged to find out what is going on in their parts of the world and convey that to their audiences. So even if a 10-year-old can’t make changes, she can inform those who have to power to do so. Think what our high school reporters can – and when allowed to HAVE done that has impact.

Both former Student Press Law Center director Frank LoMonte and JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights website have pointed out that censored news is fake news. If sources give student reporters “facts” meant to deceive, if they withhold information about problems thus preventing an attempt at solving them, if they promote platitudes about a school environment that doesn’t exist, this is surely promoting fake news. And it’s not allowing reporters to cover real news that’s important to them and their communities.

Now just one month shy of 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier case (Jan. 13, 1988), it’s time for some administrators and other haters to “get out of the way.” We have a generation wanting to get the truth and report it to others.

Making a case for press freedom
in private schools

Posted by John Bowen on Dec 3, 2017 in Blog, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

by Kristin Taylor, CJE
Private school students do not have First Amendment protections, but that doesn’t mean they have no options. In fact, some private high school students enjoy robust press freedom.

I am fortunate to advise a program at a school that has won the First Amendment Press Freedom Award the past two years. At the recent Dallas convention, my editor-in-chief Cybele and I presented a workshop to help students at other private schools make a case to their administrations for press freedom in the hopes more private schools journalism programs will join the list of FAPFA recipients in the future.

If your program is in California or Rhode Island, you should start by looking at your state laws. Unlike most New Voices legislation, which applies to public school students, both of these states have additional laws to protect private school journalists. Even without a legal recourse, however, students can make a strong case for press freedom in other ways.

Link press freedom to the school’s mission statement

Private schools, whether religious or secular, are founded on a central mission. This mission guides all aspects of the school, from hiring practices to curriculum and instruction. Making the connection between a school’s mission and supporting a free student press is often straightforward and effective. Here are two examples; I have bolded language that comes directly from the schools’ mission statements.

From my school: “Student media at Archer connects directly to the school’s mission to ‘strengthen girls’ voices’ and ‘promote challenge-seeking and support risk-taking’ in order to ‘graduate courageous, committed, and ethical young women.’ For these purposes, as well as to teach students responsibility by empowering them to make and defend their own decisions, student news media at the Archer School for Girls are designated open forums for student expression where students make all final decisions of content. Therefore, student material published on The Oracle may not reflect the opinions or policies of The Archer School for Girls, and neither school employees nor the school itself are legally responsible for its content.”

From Convent of the Sacred Heart: “’Schools of the Sacred Heart commit themselves to educate to personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom,’ (Goal 5), therefore The Broadview operates as an open forum for free speech and student expression without prior review.”

Make an argument for civic engagement and 21^st century skills — and earning the FAPFA.

Most schools cite building 21^st century skills as a key curricular goal, and I would argue scholastic journalism builds more of these skills than any other program. Making a pedagogical argument for the value of practicing democracy, not just preaching it, is another strategy for winning administrative support.

Check out the Framework for 21^st Century Skills or this Education Week teacher blog for arguments to help your case. For administrators who are concerned about critical articles making the school “look bad” — an understandable concern for schools who rely on student applications and tuition — reframe “bad press” in terms of showcasing student voice and practicing democracy.

A vibrant, free student press acting as a watchdog reveals important issues that the administration can then address. These schools don’t just say they empower student voices — they live it. I also recommend sharing information about the FAPFA and the prestige of winning this award. Only three private schools have ever won it; wouldn’t they like to join that list?

Ground the publication in journalistic ethics and best practices.

If you don’t have a state law or the Constitution to protect freedom of the press, building credibility as a publication is key. How does a staff you do that? Good reporting, careful fact-checking and an ethical framework.

When my students and I were initially building our program, we spent a lot of time talking about the adage, “Just because you can publish doesn’t mean you always should.” Although press freedom should never be tied to an administrator’s beliefs about what should or should not be published, the student editorial board needs an ethical code to guide them through difficult decisions — and they need to practice applying that code to tough situations.

Build a relationship with administrators. Educate them about the process and sustain respectful, but firm, communication.

Once you have put the previous steps into practice, it’s time to showcase your program. Invite administrators into the classroom to see the staff at work. Have student reporters explain the process they go through to ensure accurate, fair reporting. Have student editors walk administrators through a hypothetical ethical dilemma so they can see how the editors apply their ethical code to real-world scenarios. Administrators who understand the process are much more likely to trust it.

The editorial board — and especially the editor-in-chief — also needs to practice navigating conversations with administrators when problems arise. For example, when our middle school director wanted to see middle-schoolers’ quotes before a potentially controversial story was published a few years back in our grades 6-12 school, my 12^th grade editor-in-chief sat down with her to explain prior review and why our publication doesn’t participate in it. She also explained the careful process the reporters and editors go through to ensure quotes aren’t taken out of context or used to humiliate young sources.

The conversation resolved the problem — the middle school director was reassured, and the article was published without prior review. The editors also decided to include a new ethical guideline in our staff manual to have upper school reporters consider the age and maturity of middle school sources when quoting them.

For those working in public schools, some of these strategies may feel like pandering. But private schools are about relationships, and sometimes private school students have to persuade where public school students can demand. Once persuaded, however, administrators can become ardent press freedom supporters. That has been the case at my school. I hope these strategies will help more private schools join us on that FAFPA list in the future.

Handling online comments QT34

Posted by John Bowen on Nov 29, 2017 in Blog, Quick Tips, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

Deciding whether to accept online comments can be a tough decision they can carry a lot of baggage. How to review and verify them? How does refusing to run them affect your forum status?

And that’s only the first decision.

Next come a choice of approving them before posting or posting the then reviewing, which can result in takedowns.

Whatever decision students make, they should not make it lightly. Having enough students to monitor the letters in a timely manner is but one question to be answered.

Guideline

Student media should accept letters to the editor or online comments from outside the staff to solidify their status as a designated public forum where students make all final decisions of content. This allows their audience to use their voices as well. Question: Should student media enable online comments?

Key points/action: Handling online comments seems to have three options:

Review them first and then post
Post and then pull down unacceptable ones
Don’t accept any comments online at all.

All three work, depending on the mission and policies of your student media.

Stance: We feel there are no quick and easy answers, but plenty of ethical room for discussion and implementation of workable solutions.

Reasoning/suggestions: Within the choices above, your students could:

Require authenticated identification of poster before posting
Initiate a verification system of the source and his or her information
Consider your mission and forum status before students make a decision
Decide how much person power and time do you want to devote to authenticating posts?
Decide how will your decision fit into existing policies and ethical guidelines?
Ensure online and print standards are consistent

Resources:

Online ethics guidelines for social media

Questions student staffs should discuss before entering the social media environment

Online Comments: Allow Anyone to Post or Monitor and Approve First. An Ethics Lesson, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Online Ethics Guidelines for Student Media, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
A Newsroom Guide for Handling Online Comments, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee

Related: These points and other decisions about mission statement, forum status and editorial policy should be part of a Foundations Package that protects journalistically responsible student expression.

Ethical guidelines for monitoring yearbook coverage QT29

Posted by John Bowen on Nov 9, 2017 in Blog, Ethical Issues, News, Quick Tips, Scholastic Journalism | 0 comments

Arguably, the two biggest complaints most yearbook staffs hear are that a wide cross section of the school is not covered adequately, and quotes are not represented accurately. These are tough criticisms to hear, but staffs must consider the potential criticism while they create the book.

Putting the yearbook together is hard work, but the yearbook staff must avoid every temptation to cut corners and only take pictures of their friends, the first person they see in the hallway or the most high profile athlete, musician or student. Develop a system with a live index so you can track in real time how many times each individual has been in the yearbook and seek out underrepresented students and avoid over represented students.

Create an ethical guideline for how many times is too many times to be in the yearbook and find ways to target students who are underrepresented for your topical ro feature coverage. For example, when you ask a question for a sidebar in your sophomore section portraits, use that as an opportunity to find an underrepresented student. When you are covering the science experiment, take pictures of the student who is not the student government president.

When you gather quotes for these elements of the book, have students write them down and hand them to you on a piece of paper so that you can ensure accuracy. These quotes could then be archived with the other quotes for the page. This way you can ensure that the answer they give you is the answer that shows up in the yearbook.

Guideline:

The yearbook will ensure that each student can see himself or herself represented in the publication in a fair, equitable and accurate manner.

Social media post/question:

What are your ethical guidelines for choosing subjects for the yearbook?

Stance:

Work with your staff early to develop goals and guidelines for the year to help you ensure accurate and equitable coverage.

Reasoning/suggestions:

Students are the consumers of the book, and yearbook staffs are producing an historical document, which must include an accurate and complete picture of the student body for that year, regardless of who buys the book. Staffs must work early to establish their ethical guidelines for how they choose coverage, how they monitor who has been included and how they decide which students get selected for coverage.

Resources: Yearbook ethics guidelines, SPRC

Disturbing images: public’s right to know
vs. invasion of privacy QT18

Posted by John Bowen on Oct 5, 2017 in Blog, Ethical Issues, News, Quick Tips, Scholastic Journalism, Teaching | 0 comments

A 9-year-old girl, burning from napalm, runs naked down a Vietnam road. A vulture watches a Sudanese child, emaciated from famine, crawl across the ground. Two yellow-clad health workers carry a limp 8-year-old boy who might be infected with Ebola to a treatment facility.

What do these images have in common? They are all extremely disturbing, and they all won Pulitzer Prizes.

While high school journalists are unlikely to encounter these extreme conditions of war, famine and disease, they do need to think about the ethics behind publishing disturbing images. When does the public’s right to know — and the potential benefit of exposing these tragedies — outweigh the emotional harm these images might have on the people in the photographs and those who love them?

If the images are taken in a public space, there’s no question the photographers have the legal right to publish. But, as we often tell our students, just because you can publish doesn’t mean you always should.

The highest ethical responsibility for a journalist is to seek truth and report it, but journalists must also consider the responsibility to minimize harm.

[pullquote]When does the public’s right to know — and the potential benefit of exposing these tragedies — outweigh the emotional harm these images might have on the people in the photographs and those who love them?[/pullquote]

The answer isn’t for editors to set up a set list of what kind of images should or should not be published, but rather to develop an ethical process to help them work through the benefits and drawbacks of publishing a disturbing photograph.

When constructing a process for determining whether to publish an image, students should consider many questions, including:

Is this image important and relevant to the story? Is the image merely explotive/sensational, or does it have news value?
What makes it meaningful?
Will the audience understand the information conveyed without reading any accompanying text?
What story does it tell?
What story would others be able to get from that photo?
What impact will publishing this photograph have on the people in the image or on those people’s loved ones?
What impact will it have on the news consumer? Does the public’s right to know outweigh any emotional harm to the subject or the subject’s loved ones?
What, if any, warnings should accompany online content?
How would they defend the decision to run the image to others, including stakeholders and those directly impacted by the image?
Is there an alternative, better, way to show the story?

Advisers may want to set up hypothetical situations to allow students to practice this ethical process. Here are some scenarios to spark debate:

During a soccer game, a student falls and breaks her leg. The photographer gets a series of pictures of the accident, including one that shows graphically the severity of the break with bone protruding and another that shows a close up of her face, covered in dirt and tears, as paramedics rush onto the field. In an article about the injury, should the editors publish one of these images? If so, which one?
A student comes to the Prom very drunk and ends up starting a fight. The photographer has a several pictures of the flight, including ones from when the police arrived. In an article about the fight, should the editors publish one of these images? Why or why not?
The worst happens — a student brings a gun to school and opens fire. Though, no one is killed before the shooter is contained, two students are injured. One of the reporters had a camera nearby and got the following pictures: a picture of the campus police officer running toward the shooter, a picture of one of the victims bleeding on the ground, and a picture of the shooter being handcuffed. In an article about the event, should the editors publish one of these images? If so, which one?

Guideline: Students should consider not only the news value of an image but also the emotional effect of the image on the audience. They should balance the public’s right to know with the privacy of the people in the image and their loved ones when considering publication of disturbing photos.

Social Media Question: Disturbing photos give powerful insights into tragedy but can be exploitive. How can we balance public’s right to know with potential harm?

Reasoning/suggestions:

Determining whether or not a disturbing photograph should be published requires a deliberate, ethical conversation among student editors. Once editors determine the image is not a legal invasion of privacy — taken in a private space where the subject had a reasonable expectation of privacy — they need to consider the ethics of publishing the image.

When constructing a process for determining whether to publish an image, students should consider many questions, including:

Is this image important and relevant to the story? Is the image merely explotive/sensational, or does it have news value?
What makes it meaningful?
Will the audience understand the information conveyed without reading any accompanying text?
What story does it tell?
What story would others be able to get from that photo?
What impact will publishing this photograph have on the people in the image or on those people’s loved ones?
What impact will it have on the news consumer? Does the public’s right to know outweigh any emotional harm to the subject or the subject’s loved ones?
What, if any, warnings should accompany online content?
How would they defend the decision to run the image to others, including stakeholders and those directly impacted by the image?
Is there an alternative, better, way to show the story?