SPRC has wealth of information to share
by John Bowen, MJE
It seems advisers and students nationwide face more questions recently about law and ethics. Questions have dealt with unnamed sources, takedown requests and yearbook ethics among others.
We assist our followers with more than resources and examples.
While our team at the Scholastic Press Rights Committee respond quickly and authoritatively we, as our first step, urge you to contact the SPLC first for all legal questions. Outside that, SPRC members will do as much as we can on questions.
Our information sharing starts with the Panic Button:
Read MoreA pillar of strength: the Tinker decision
Mary Beth Tinker takes pictures at Kent State University’s May 4 Visitor’s Center of exhibits from the sixties. The center documents the era as its protests and time of anti-war expressiion foreshadowed the deaths of four Kent State students.
We realized as we were creating content ( see Lori Keekley’s blog) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tinker case, we have so much relevant material. Here are a few by category.
Read MoreNews vs public relations
Title
News vs. Public Relations
Description
The community gets information about what is happening at school through different publications, but not all of these publications are journalistic. In this lesson, students will differentiate between student reporting and school public relations by comparing and contrasting student publications with school public relations content such as newsletters, school-created magazines or school websites created and maintained by adults in the community.
Read MoreTrickling down hits the news room
by Stan Zoller, MJE
The Ronald Reagan presidency, if nothing else, introduced the United State to “trickle-down economics,” which was described as a method by which “… benefits for the wealthy trickle down to everyone else. These benefits are tax cuts on businesses, high-income earners, capital gains and dividends.”
It could be described that government edicts would, in the long run, be the rule of thumb for everyone.
Some pundits still debate the effectiveness of “trickle-down economics” even though Reagan’s eight years as president ended 29 years ago.
Old political stands die hard.
Under the current administration, journalists and journalism educators may be experience “trickle down journalism” in which the condescending attacks on journalism by the Trump Administration are trickling down to the general population.
For journalism educators, especially scholastic journalism educators, the trickle down may be hitting administrators.
Read MoreHandling sponsored content
Student media, when faced with publishing sponsored content, should act carefully and with the best interests of the audience/consumer first.
Although it is quite possible scholastic media will never face making a decision to run content known as sponsored or native ads, students and advisers should prepare guidelines just in case.
Sponsored content and native advertising, two media terms for paid materials, are becoming a fact of life for media and consumers. That said, student media, when faced with publishing them, should act carefully and with the best interests of the audience/consumer first.
Scholastic media owe it to their audiences to expect clearly sourced and non-slanted information, particularly with so much concern with fake news.
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