Journalistic integrity guides student media QT28
As scholastic media advisers and students develop policies and guidelines to guide them with journalism standards, they should note these words: The only thing students have to lose as journalists is their credibility.
HL Hall, former JEA president, would tell ASNE High School Institute advisers this over a 14-year span. He would pair it with ethics, thorough reporting and leadership guidelines.
Credibility, ethics and practices boil down to one word, integrity.
Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility, The Radio Television Digital News Association states. Other media groups agree.
Students and advisers should anchor their mission statements, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures within a framework that starts with integrity.
Quick Tips: Journalistic integrity guides journalism students and their media
Question: Why should scholastic media should frame their brands and practices with journalistic integrity?
Key points/action Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility states the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA). The Society of Professional Journalists says it a little differently, “An ethical journalist acts with integrity.”
Both organizations would say in having integrity is basic to good journalism no matter how it is delivered.
Stance: The RTDNA and the SPJ both include the concept of media and individual integrity in their ethics guidelines and media practices.
So should scholastic news media.
Reasoning/suggestions:
Some traits and practices essential to developing integrity are the following:
- Create ethical guidelines and their practices to establish standards
- Operate to maintain the public trust
- Commit to accuracy in pursuit of journalistic activities
- Verify before publishing information
- Check source and information credibility
- Seek the truth
- Develop and practice superior methods of investigation, transparent to all involved
- Maintain independent and respectful relationships with sources, businesses and citizens
Ensure mission statement, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and staff manual practices include integrity built upon these concepts. Being transparent when integrity is compromised is also important as it shows how well students apply its principles.
Resources:
Public Media Code of Integrity
Why be transparent has replaced act independently as a guiding journalism principle
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.
Read More
Dealing with unwanted, forced prior review? QT26
by John Bowen, MJE
JEA historically has opposed prior review of student media by school officials.
That opposition continues.
Prior review leads only to control, active censorship and iis the first step toward the spread of fake news and less than complete disinformation.
Students and advisers, though, may have no immediate choice but to be under prior review by school officials.
The question then becomes what might the Scholastic Press Rights Committee recommend for consideration until adviser and students, and maybe school officials, create a way to trust and empower student decision-making and civic engagement as designated public forums.
Consider these possibilities:
As journalism teachers we know our students learn more when they make content choices. Prior review and restraint do not teach students to produce higher quality journalism or to become more journalistically responsible.
As journalism teachers we know the only way to teach students to take responsibility for their decisions is to train them and for that responsibility.
As journalism teachers we know democracy depends on students who understand all voices have a right to be heard and have a voice in their school and community.
Thus, to help students achieve professional standards, journalism educators should consider the following process:
- Encourage transparency about who determines the content of a student publication by alerting readers and viewers when student media are subject to prior review and restraint;
- Advocate for the educational benefits of student press freedom if student media are subject to prior review or restraint;
- Provide students with access to sources of professional advice outside the school for issues they need to address;
- Attempt to follow and support JEA’s Adviser Code of Ethics;
- Provide students with tools that include adequate knowledge and resources to successfully carry out their work. By using these tools, students build trust in the learning process and the theories on which it is based;
- Encourage students to seek multiple points of view and to explore a variety of credible sources in their reporting and decision-making;
- Coach instead of making decisions, modeli the value of the learning process and demonstrate the trust we place in our educational system;
- Empower students to understand what journalistic responsibility requires and how to achieve credible journalism where prior review and restraint are not necessary;
- Model a professional newsroom atmosphere where students share in and take responsibility for their work. In so doing, scholastic journalists increase dialogue and help ensure civic engagement;
- Use peer editing to encourage student interaction, analysis and problem solving;
- Instruct students about civic engagement and journalism’s role in maintaining and protecting our democratic heritage;
- Showcase student media where the dissemination of information is unfiltered by prior review and restraint so the school’s various communities receive accurate, truthful and complete information.
While we know advisers will make decisions regarding prior review and other educational issues based on what they believe they can support philosophically, the SPRC reiterates its strong rejection of prior review, and hence prior restraint, as tools in the educational process.
Even though we offer tQuick Tip below as a temporary measure for those who face prior review or have no choice about prior review, this process is not a pathway to building stronger student media and ultimately more engaged citizens.
Quick Tips: When prior review is your only choice
Guideline: While students and advisers, who have to operate under prior review, work toward changing that situation, they should also believe in, and support, those who practice journalism as a designated public forum.
Question: What policies should you negotiate when you are stuck with prior review?
Key points/action: JEA historically has – and does – oppose prior review by school officials. It is an unacceptable practice with no educational value. Prior review only leads to control, active censorship and the first steps toward fake news and less than complete disinformation.
It is possible, though, students and advisers have no immediate choice but to be under prior review by school officials.
The question then becomes what the SPRC would recommend until adviser, students and school officials, provide all involved (students, advisers, faculty, administrators, school board and communities) with a better learning environment than prior review.
Stance: While students and advisers work toward a no prior review goal, we would suggest these steps toward an alternative:
- Student media are identified and practice as designated public forums for student expression where student editors and staff make all final decisions of content.
- Before publishing or posting pages/broadcast/web materials, administrators have the length of a school day (the day they are given materials) to review content and to ask questions. Materials should be given in a timely manner.
- All content must return to students’ hands at the end of the day, on schedule, for publication.
- If administrators/school officials have questions, they may request meeting time within that day, which will not delay publication.
- School officials may comment, ask questions or request changes.
- All final decisions remain with the student journalists as they meet their deadlines. They can choose to heed school officials requests or suggestions or go with content as it was.
Reasoning/suggestions: If review is to help students learn and to identify areas of administrative concern rather than content control, this process should provide adequate opportunity for discussion and collaboration – and keep the journalistic process on track.
Student critical thinking, decision-making and application of learning objectives across the school’s mission remain intact, creating time for a more permanent forum practice to be forged.
Resources: SPRC
• JEA’s Adviser Code of Ethics
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.
Read More
Empowering student decision-making QT22
The role of the adviser in student-run media incorporates teacher, coach, counselor, listener and devil’s advocate but not doer. We like the JEA Adviser Code of Ethics as guides for advisers.
That role means letting students make all decisions including content, context and grammar.
One way advisers can help this process is by having a staff manual inclusive of the student media mission statement, policies, guidelines and procedures. The mission statement outlines the overall aim of the student media. Policies are either the board-level or media-level and state the functionality of the student press. Guidelines are the ethical components the student media will work with. The procedures and resources for students to learn how to do something.
Guideline:
As per the board-level or media-level policy, students should be empowered to make all content decisions for student media.
Social media post/question:
What do you do in the instance of who should make the content decisions?
Stance:
Students learn best when they are empowered to make their own decisions with support from the adviser on the sideline. A clear understanding of the adviser’s role helps students take ownership of their work and the program overall.
Reasoning/suggestions:
Students should be empowered to make all content decisions for student media. Instead of making the decisions, advisers should advise and ask questions to help the students examine the issue from multiple perspectives and concerns.
One way advisers can help this process is by having a staff manual inclusive of the student media mission statement, policies, guidelines and procedures. The mission statement outlines the overall aim of the student media. Policies are either the board-level or media-level and act as a constitution for the student press. Guidelines are the ethical components the student media will work with. The procedures and resources for students to learn how to do something.
If students know (or can look at what to do) what By already establishing these prior to a problem happening, it’s easier to see what to do when something does happen. (And, it will.) These policies, guidelines and procedures should function as a reference and be complete (preferably) prior to the problem happening. This helps the students (and adviser) work through issues if they do happen.
Resources:
Female High School Students Bear the Burden of Censorship, SPLC
Curing Hazelwood package, SPRC
The Role of Student Media: Foundations Package, SPRC
SPLC resources, SPLC
Read More
How can my school get involved
in the New Voices campaign? QT21
Almost a quarter of all states have now passed legislation protecting voice in student media, and instilling the virtues of the First Amendment as state statute for student media. North Dakota’s success in 2015 seemed to spark the latest fire that has seen legislative recognition of student speech in Illinois, Maryland, Vermont and Rhode Island.
That still leaves 38 states without overt student press rights protections, which muddies the waters for students, advisers, and school administrators.
If you live in a state without clear student press protections, work with your state-level scholastic media organizations, professional news organizations and school administrators to show the benefits of doing so.
The most important element of student press protection is that it establishes, state by state, a practical First Amendment laboratory in the schools, where students are empowered to make decisions, develop civic efficacy and establish ethical decision-making guidelines.
It also benefits schools and administrators in that it establishes clear and specific guidelines for student press that would not be acceptable. In most cases, that means libel, invasion or privacy, obscenity, or language that materially disrupts the rights of others to learn.
Students in states that have clear student press protections can also help by sharing the success stories of their real-life practice of the First Amendment in their schools. How has your classroom experience helped you make ethical decisions? How have you become more of a leader because your state law empowered you to do so?
Guideline
Support free expression for others in local and larger communities
Stance:
Students in all schools should actively support student press rights legislation in their states and/or other states with active legislation.
Reasoning/suggestions:
The New Voices campaign has successfully created student press protection laws in several states in the last two years. Currently, 13 states explicitly protect student press rights.
Building student media programs by protecting student press laws is one of the most efficacious means of building civically minded students. In a time when the media is increasingly under fire for the accuracy of their reporting, it’s critical we foster an environment in high schools which promotes ethical, truthful and accurate storytelling while protecting students’ rights to tell those stories.
Teachers and students who would like to be active in this movement, should contact their JEA state directors or reach out to the Student Press Law Center.
Resources:
JEA updates its Adviser Code of Ethics
Center for Scholastic Journalism Legislative Conference videos
Read More
Disturbing images: public’s right to know
vs. invasion of privacy QT18
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?
Resources:
Presentation Slideshow: Photo Ethics: Disturbing Images, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Ethics, Dignity and Responsibility in Visual Journalism, Jason Tanner, Human Rights for Journalism
Visual ethics guidelines, Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism
Visual Journalism, NPR Code of Ethics
Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery, Newseum
Lesson: To Print or Not to Print, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: When Journalists Err Ethically, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: With Freedom of the Press Comes Great Responsibility, Journalism Education Association
SPJ Code of Ethics, Society of Professional Journalists
NPPA Code of Ethics, National Press Photographers Association
Photojournalism ethics needs a reexamination, The Poynter Institute
Visual ethical guidelines join online, yearbook ethics, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Audio: Using Images from Social Media, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee Press Rights Minute
Read More