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Press rights are concept deserving every. day. practice
by Stan Zoller, MJE
It’s a scene that has played out many times. An administrator prior reviews a publication. Adviser and staff bring the situation to light by contacting the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee (SPRC) and other organizations.
Before long, the situation ebbs – resolved or not – and life goes on.
Which is a problem. The assault on journalism continues at all levels. Advisers and student journalists at the scholastic level need to continue their vigilance on a regular basis to maintain a free and responsible student media.
Read MoreBe proactive in educating your school administrators about student press rights
by Mitch Ziegler, MJE
On a newspaper deadline night I was reading a story about a student’s trip to Jordan and the West Bank, which focused on her strong criticisms about how her family was treated by the Israelis who ran the border crossing. It was an opinion piece, which argued solely through description.
Like all strong opinions, there were definitely counter-arguments in my mind, which we discussed. After suggesting a few minor edits, we printed the story essentially unchanged.
Because we are in California, a state with strong First Amendment protections for student journalists, it’s how I operate: according to the law and my belief in student free speech.
As I sent the PDF to the printer, my inner voice said, “you are going to be hit hard on this one.”
And I was, by the Jewish community in Redondo Beach, of which I am a member. There were meetings, and angry letters to the school board, district administration, school administration, and me.
The one side I had no worries about, however, was my school and district.
The key is to foster relationships and instruct administration in the law. When controversy occurs, this can prevent or slow administrator’s responses, which sometimes is all you need.
Early in my career I learned it was important to be in contact with administrators about publications, and to provide training in student press rights. About a year before the above incident, I met with the admin team to talk about student press rights and why the laws were a help to them. During that meeting a new assistant principal actually took notes!
I pointed out how the law protects them from liability, unless they decide to interfere with student speech. It was pretty easy to discuss the California Education Code with them, which is pretty clear and which provides the strongest student press rights in the country.
Libel and obscenity were a quick discussion, while the discussion about disruption, which some misguided administrators love to cite, took a bit longer.
I then went backward a bit, to show how press rights are a form of property rights. Stories in the newspaper and yearbook were one type, but I also decided to cite an example outside of content in publications, with a more general appeal: issues with senior panorama photos.
There had been an incident at another school where the principal had students removed from a group shot for expressing religious messages.
The principal worried the school could get into trouble by violating the separation of church and state. The Tinker decision, however, guarantees students possess rights to free speech. When the principal pulled the student out of the photograph, he was depriving the students their rights to free speech and showing viewpoint preference.
The answer, it turns out, is in allowing press rights. The yearbook staff owns the group photo, and the staff editors own the right to determine content in the yearbook.
As the adviser, I discuss with the students what they want to allow in the photograph. Once they agree the only messages allowed are class-spirited ones, students can be pulled out of the photograph by the adviser or principal, or anyone else, as long as they are acting on behalf of the yearbook editors, who “own” the content of the photograph.
The moment the principal acted alone, the speech rights, which were originally owned by the student editors, shifted to a conflict between the students with the religious message and the principal, with the property right shifting to the students.
The moment the principal acted alone, the speech rights, which were originally owned by the student editors, shifted to a conflict between the students with the religious message and the principal, with the property right shifting to the students.
Mitch Ziegler …
By the time of the controversy about my student’s article, administrators at my school were armed with proper knowledge of student press rights. They were able to educate district administrators and board members early in the process, which limited or prevented reactive responses, and they were able to respond to angry community members in a way the tended to defuse the situation.
And it was not just the law that protected me. I was able to build credibility and relationships with site administrators, which I believe was as important as the law itself. At no point did I feel threatened or undermined.
It’s all about communication and being proactive with administrators. This is not a guaranteed recipe for success, even in California. These strategies have the potential to help in many situations, but they will never be as useful without New Voices legislation.
Read MoreRiding out the storm should involve future planning
Scholastic media have important information to convey, this year probably more than ever. In far too many communities, school media are the only source of such information in a news desert created when local and sometimes even larger newspapers have folded in recent years. As we work our way through the storm that is 2020, student-run journalism should learn to anticipate what’s coming next, and how to avoid negative impact.
Part 2 of multiple parts
by John Bowen, MJE
For most high schools, school looms in the coming weeks when students – and advisers – face more of what 2020 can throw at them. Already this fall, journalism programs have faced unforeseen challenges.
• In a state with freedom of expression legislation, student journalists withstood threats demanding prior review, which is often not prohibited by state legislation. The school’s superintendent came to the students’ defense, explaining protection for student free expression.
• In a state trying to pass free expression legislation, school officials made even stronger threats of prior review when students and community members publicized school actions.
• In another state, student photographers were suspended for taking photos of students crowded in a hallway. Most students pictured did not wear masks. Within a week the school faced increasing numbers of those testing positive. School officials also lifted two students’ suspensions for taking the photos.
• During protests earlier this summer, student journalists found themselves targets of police and federal agents as they attempted to cover national events for local perspectives.
Such challenges will continue.
To stay ahead of problems, students can learn to anticipate plan to avoid problems. Such preventative decision-making and problem-solving builds ethical fitness.
Issues student journalists likely will focus around these:
• As the numbers affected by virus continue remain news, scholastic journalists will face questions about how they report it and related local issues:
–How will HIPAA and FERPA affect reporting of Covid-19 related student issues? Should student-run media try to identify those who tested positive?
–How will journalists handle sources’ requests concerning privacy? How much will your students inform their communities about journalism and privacy?
–What are student rights and responsibilities concerning visual reporting of those involved in massless participation in music, sports event and more. Think photography in crowded hallways.
–What will your audiences need to know about the virus and its effects on education issues, stories your students can do better than anyone else.
–Who speaks most authoritatively on Covid-19 and fallout that surrounds it?
• Election reporting and student media:
–Will your students run political candidate or issue ads, nationally and locally? Some administrators claim student media cannot to that. Research and determine the staff’s view on endorsements and their legality. Check out SPLC’s guidance. Perhaps students don’t want to deal with endorsement. What are pros-cons of that choice?
How will your students report the national election, one on which, some say, will determine the future of democracy in the United States? Should they emphasize the locally important issues? Focus on what voters need to know and the myriad questions that can follow? Would they run only viewpoint pieces?
Questions to help anticipate potential areas of conflict in this time of change
–How would your students explain choosing not to run such ads?
–How will your students report the national election, one on which, some say, will determine the future of democracy in the United States? Should they emphasize the locally important issues? Focus on what voters need to know and the myriad questions that can follow? Would they run only viewpoint pieces?
–How can, or should they factcheck candidates’ claims? What is your obligation to the truth? What is the obligation to call out lies?
–How far will student media go to expose source and information falsity? Is it ethical to plainly call a source a liar?
–What roles, if any, will objectivity, verification, credibility, integrity and knowledge play. Oh, and those are for reporter, columnist and editors as well as sources.
—What ethical planning might student journalists have to make for visual reporting standards when reporting on BLM and protests, police reform and more? For example, should ethical guidelines be changed when identifying protestors, or other participants, to protect their identities.
–How do you determine whose information to cite? Do you have a process to do that? Which student staffers have final say on publishing questionable materials? How do you define questionable? This and this and this and this.
— How good is this story? Professor William Taylor drilled this motto into us in journalism classes: “It isn’t right until it is right.” Who decides what right entails? Right for whom? What’s right: facts, context, implication, perspectives?
–Can voters count on the information to be complete and cohesive enough to cast an informed vote (and we will share more about this in another blog when we look at prior review and restraint and the roe of administrators concerning student media.
—Can/should high school media do this kind of reporting? Why and how? And this.
• Reporting the truth as best you can find it:
–How do you define “responsible?” What is “Responsible Journalism” and who sets the meaning? It is quite common to find a variety of definitions, and that can cause problems. because the term has become a buzzword for control and censorship.
—Is objectivity the gold standard for news journalism? What does it mean; what does it mean in the school setting? Could a photographer also be a “cheerleader,” supporting the team while performing news functions from the sidelines? Is it possible, and this and this.
–How do student journalists choose terminology accurate about other cultures, the economy, education, religion? When is a terrorist not a terrorist?
–To what degree can prior review and restraint alter the truth and accuracy of information? Do voters receive accurate, factual, complete and coherent information upon which to make intelligent, informed decisions?
–What does censorship teach students and adults about whether what they learn about civic engagement, petition and duty is different from reality? What do they do about that new fact?
—What are journalists’ roles now and in the future? How do we help student media be prepared for the changing journalism landscape?
The first piece of this series on preparing student journalists to face change affecting how they complete their obligations and mission. we referred to the “perfect storm” mixing in to a “seething atmosphere of political unease” to go with the virus, protests and the election.
This blog, second in the series, Riding out the storm, is designed to raise questions about additional ethical training student media need. Student journalists can become more adept at anticipating changes to scholastic media and communities it serves, and and in creating alternatives to.
Communities, student and adult, can then take the information they need to factually engage and build desirable futures.
Alone, each of these issues could deeply stress scholastic journalism’s ethical framework. Together, engaging issues and alternatives, we can craft a path to ultimately unify scholastic journalism’s foundation: mission statement, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and application process.
Read MoreConstitution Day 2020
In a unique year featuring not only a world-wide pandemic but also mass protests, a presidential election and plenty of attempts at spreading misinformation, it’s as important as ever for students to understand their rights.
Constitution Day, observed Sept. 17 each year, celebrates the signing of the United States Constitution, and provides a perfect opportunity (either on that day or in the weeks before or after) to touch on our Constitutional rights, especially as they relate to Freedom of Speech.
This year, mindful of the particular challenges of 2020, the Scholastic Press Rights Committee has put together a series of lessons focusing on supporting student voices in the current environment. We have lessons on specific laws affecting student speech as well as materials touching on protests (and how to cover them), voting, election coverage and recognizing bias in the news.
Each provides opportunities for quick learning and discussion as well as options for exploring the topics in more depth over several days, even virtually. Check the more detailed descriptions and links for each, below.
Aside from the new lessons, this is an excellent time to touch base with students and with each other about the state of New Voices laws across the country, making sure you are aware of particular protections you may already have or particular movements in your state working to secure these protections. You may also wish to make sure students are aware of support available through the Student Press Law Center or look through their website for current examples and explanations of legal rights.
Protecting Student Voices (by Matthew Smith): Get your students competing to test their knowledge of specific laws, court cases that shape their speech and publication rights at school and the resources available to them. Additional suggestions are provided for discussion and applying the concepts to your specific school.
Expanding the First Amendment (by Kristin Taylor): Help students gain a better understanding of how state laws may expand student press rights beyond the First Amendment, as limited by Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Students will use SPLC.org to research their state’s New Voices status as well as explore the SPLC’s New Voices FAQ, evaluate the legality of their current press freedom and discuss next steps for personal action.
Protest and the First Amendment (by Audrey Wagstaff): Give students a better understanding of the legal protections of their right to protest as well as the importance of journalism in accurately covering them. Students will be able to review examples of protest coverage and best practices and will apply this knowledge to a variety of protest coverage scenarios.
Reporting elections: issues, candidates and making endorsements (by John Bowen): Move students through critical-thinking and decision-making processes for covering election stories that meet the needs of their community. By applying reporting procedures to important coverage, on a deadline, students learn to decide which races and issues to focus on and how.
Voting, Voice and the Constitution (by Mark Dzula): This unit introduces the 15th and the 19th amendments to the United States Constitution, amendments that respectively afforded black men and all women voting rights. The activities provoke analysis of primary documents (including historical newspapers), challenge students to consider voting rights in contemporary contexts, and encourage them to consider relationships between voice, activism, the press and voting.
Know Your News (by Michael Bjorklund): With the election year upon us, it’s getting harder for students to find factual, unbiased news. This lesson focuses on teaching media biases through the scope of identifying and analyzing media coverage.
Plenty of the lessons from past Constitution Day posts also remain relevant. Feel free to search through any of those: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013.
If you have any feedback or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Matthew Smith matthewssmith17@gmail.com) or Mark Dzula (mdzula@webb.org). Thank you!
Constitution Day Committee
Matthew Smith, CJE, Fond du Lac High School (WI)
Mark Dzula, the Webb Schools (CA)
Kristin Taylor, CJE, The Archer School for Girls (CA)
John Bowen, MJE, Kent State University (OH)
Audrey Wagstaff, MJE, Wilmington College (OH)
Michael Bjorklund, Columbia High (FL)
Election coverage:
Outlining an ethical guide for journalistic responsibility and civic engagement by reporting issues, candidates and making endorsements
Return to Front cover Constitution Day 2020
Description
It’s election season again and people are especially drawn to the major issues separating the nation and the clear-cut national divisions between key candidates. There is little compromise, and some have said democracy’s future is at stake.
This lesson on election coverage moves students through critical-thinking and decision-making processes and prompts students to cover stories that meet their communities’ needs.
By applying reportorial procedures to important coverage, and on a deadline, students build guidelines for real decisions they will make. To learn to meet communities’ needs, the students must become involved in civic engagement with candidates, officials, voters and those outside the system.
Your staff ponders choices they face:
• To report the national race
• To report only on key races and people
• To ignore because it is too controversial
• To endorse candidates and issues.
Beyond the national, other elections can make or break national, regional, state city and local futures:
• local issues like school levies, school board candidates
• City elections with income taxes and support for hospitals, libraries and more
• State issues as above but also like issues and referendums on constitutional change
• and then the ones that seem to draw the most attention – national level congressional and presidential ones affecting all citizens.
Which election, if any, to report, why to report and how to report?
Objectives
• Students will, after research and discussion, choose which of the various elections have the most local impact this year for students, local communities and a democratic society.
• Students will investigate Best Practices of reporting elections, from local to national, and to choose the most important to their diverse audiences.
• Students will, as they gather information from their reporting, discuss and decide whether they want to/should endorse, oppose or abstain from opinion coverage in this election.Students will prepare reasons from their gathering and reporting and draft an editorial student media can use to endorse, or not.
Common Core State Standards
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2. | Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.9 | Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.6 | Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.B | Develop the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic. |
Length
Essentially 5 days
Variables: (Teacher and staff/class will have to tailor lessons to school schedule, location and pandemic status):
• 50 minutes daily
• 60 minutes daily
• 1:5-2hours every other day
• Other
• Remote home learning (students would likely have to, at some point, work in teams of one or more:
• Editors
• Text reporters (3-5)
• Visual reporters (2-3)
• Copy/headline design concepts editor
• All team members work on editing and design
Materials / resources
• Equipment consisting of: Smart phones, audio/video as available, computers for uploading, editing, Internet for interviewing, research, editing, contact and planning
Lesson 1: Should students cover elections this year, which elections and why?
Step 1 — Introduction (30 minutes) Introduce the assignment as a different way to cover elections that could model a new, more student centric, approach. (Teacher and/or medium editor could do so.) While reporting is news-based, it could involve news feature reporting, depth reporting, profiles and alternative story forms.
Choice of forms is up to students and should/could involved multiple form, except one. Do not, for now, include plans for viewpoint or editorials. Focus on leadership through information gathering.
Step 2 – Choices (30 minutes) Teacher or lead students will break the class into teams as noted, and will first discuss pros and cons in learning for the student staff and communities. What values are there in focusing first and primarily on objective coverage? What kind of reporting varieties make sense to show the diverse nature of this particular election. What are advantages and disadvantages of possible story forms? Which might be the most understandable? Which lend themselves to clearly showing issues? Keep a list of the discussions and of the decisions.
Step 3 (30 minutes) Student team leaders should show reporting groups a list of possible types of elections that could be covered in your area:
• local issues like school levies, school board candidates
• City elections with income taxes and support for hospitals, libraries and more
• State issues as above but also like issues and referendums on constitutional change
• and then the ones that seem to draw the most attention – national level congressional and presidential ones affecting all citizens.
In team or group discussion, the team leader should lead discussion focus on this type of questions about possible local election coverage:
• Should student media cover elections as listed above? Yes, no and why?
• Answer-team leaders should look to include educating communities, being leaders in forming views, identifying community values, providing forums for discussion and providing diverse looks at how issues, people might affect students and citizens locally.
• What can we accomplish and aid potential voters?
• Should we endorse non-school candidates and issues?
• Should we endorse school candidates and issues? What arguments make either choice valuable? What is important to know about the issues
• Can students legally endorse or support all types of issues, candidates?
• What are pros and cons of each question and you might raise?
• Others raised by student readers.
During the discussions, keep notes for the final step It is likely each group might duplicate focal points, like focus on national elections.The teacher and team leaders should meet and decide what to do in that case. For example:
• Have decided on coin flips
• Allow groups to negotiate with the others
• Allow groups to do the same level of election coverage but with different focus
• Other
Assessment: Students will write a position statement of no more than 75 words on the process, its value and of the outcome to give to the instructor the next class.
Lesson 2: How should each election selected by the team be covered?
Step 1 — Introduction (40 minutes) Team leaders will take a vote and then move ahead as team to work on interviewing, researching, story form planning assignment of story angles. It likely would be good to use as many approaches as possible, and as time allows.
Step 2 — Introduction (20 minutes) Team leaders lead discussion. Someone takes notes on the discussion and reasoning for the choices made.
Assessment: statement on the choices, questions and plans due to instructorot end of class.
Lesson 3: Planning the coverage and building reporting guidelines
Step 1 — Introduction by team leader (60 minutes) Team leaders will lead team members through the following:
• Each person’s story ideas and suggestions and why audiences would care
• Best platform to publish and why; will that require in terms of time, equipment, number of reporters;
• Who are the best sources? Why? Are they local and credible? Can you talk with them live? How? Sources? Sidebars? Alternate story forms? Collaboration with other schools? Blends of four types of sources: experts, authorities, Knowledgeable and reactors.
• How will information be gathered?
How will information like campaign charges and statements be verified? Will yours really Question Authority? Will reporters apply principles of “skeptical knowing?” What will they do if they find a source running for office is lying knowingly?
Does your staff have ethical guidelines, separate from policy, that provide the framework for procedures like:
• Handling use of unnamed sources
• What to do if sources ask to review How to answer if a school official says student media cannot run political endorsements or edits on school levies?
If so, could this lesson expand to strengthen, through other lessons, how your students practice reporting and leadership? If not, could this lesson be the foundation for creating such Ethical Guidelines-Application process in the Scholastic Press Rights committee’s Quick Tips and Foundation approach to a unified and expanded staff manual?
Assessment would come as another student statement on reactions and questions about the story and ethical planning in this session.
Lesson 4: Deadlines, types coverages needed, why
Step 1 — Introduction (20 minutes) The team will then set deadlines, checkpoints and decide the story format they think they will use. They would also set team meetings to finish their reporting, based on your media’s current schedules. This process can also change to adjust to changes. If students decide decide quickly, go to Lesson 5.
Lesson 5: Should involve op-ed pieces? Why?
Step 1 — Introduction (10 minutes) The teacher should return all assessment statements to each student, giving students a chance to look over what they wrote.
Step 2 — Introduction (20 minutes) The teacher will then pose this question: Based on your experiences and planning for election stories, which of the types, including objective reporting or possible use of editorial/viewpoint, would you find most effective in covering an election?
Why? Which do you think various communities might react to that question? Discuss briefly. Should students take stands on school issuse and candidates in opinion pieces? There is no correct answer. What the teacher seeks is the thinking process and supporting of arguments.
Step 3 — Assessment (40 minutes) The teacher will assign students to outline the content of a 125-300 word opinion piece about what position they would take on one of the election stories.
Some questions to use as guide in your thinking:
• Would they use content from the infogathering and reporting in their opinion statement? How? In their view, would the objective process be more, less or how important to audiences in terms of making an informed decision?
• Which approach to story coverage, objective or opinion, would, in their view, be most informative for voters? Why?
• What advantage, if any, would subjective presentation have over objective presentation?
The teacher will collect at the end of the session or could make it due the next session if students needed additional time.
Students will continue their election reporting from this point.
Differentiation
This is meant to be a guideline of what the process and outcomes can be. It would be impossible to predict a scenario for every variable. Teachers and students can also best adapt this framework to fit time variables and even the place variables, particularly with a Covid-19 induced variety school schedule possibilities.
Hopefully, the lesson can be a springboard to additional lessons, like on formalizing procedures used in reporting topics similar – and different, in thinking about the power of op-ed pieces, or whether student media should endorse or oppose issues or candidates locally.
Substantial numbers say endorsing public officials and public issues is illegal by public school media because it is a misuse of public funds. Also substantial in numbers, others argue it is not and provide legal guidance from the Internal Revenue Service.
The value if this assignment is in its flexibility, its emphasis on collaboration, planning, critical thinking and time and energy it takes to localize important stories.
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