Celebrate roles student news media can bring to a democratic society; honor, envision and practice free speech
JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee hopes to help you and your students celebrate their free speech rights this year. Constitution Day, observed on Sept. 17 each year in commemoration of the signing of the United States Constitution, is an excellent time to do it.
This year we provide lesson materials ranging from exploring impactful, recent Supreme Court cases to applying the democratic political philosophy of John Dewey and how to use modern planning tools to improve coverage.
We have a quick Constitution-review crossword as well as an additional blog post to help you and your students audit if your coverage was as comprehensive as you’d like.
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.
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 MoreWorking to develop ethical fitness
It’s the perfect storm as Covid-19, questions of police brutality and subsequent violent protestor response mix into an already seething atmosphere of political unease. Each of these issues alone could deeply stress scholastic journalism’s ethical framework.
Together, these and many other questions and incidents, will provide scholastic media students with challenges as they strive to become ethically fit as they bring national issues into local perspective.
Mark’s presentation dealt with legal rights and rules when covering protests. Ethical questions are more like whether students should report the incident. How report it? What if….
Information in this blog is created for a presentation to scholastic teachers, advisers and students Aug. 5 through remote connection to an AEJMC workshop. Please feel free to use it. Links are stories illustrating or about the ethical issue.
Law is “will;” ethics is “should.”
Ethical decisions likely will have varying possible solutions, with few rights or wrongs. Ethical thinking is often about the process as much as the decision.
Read MorePrior review and prior restraint
This online lesson guides students through the basics of prior review and prior restraint and the specifics of how it applies to student media. Almost every national journalism education group and professional journalism organization opposes prior review and restraint as having little to no educational value. A position on prior review is an essential part of a staff manual.
Objectives
- Students will demonstrate understanding of prior review and restraint.
- Students will compare and contrast prior review and restraint with journalism principles, ethics and decision-making.
- Students will develop arguments to defend or oppose the use of prior review and restraint
Common Core State Standards
| CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.2 | Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. |
| CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.6 | Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically. |
| CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.10 | Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. |
| CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.5 | Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grades 11-12 here.) |
Length
Based on individual needs
Materials / resources
Prior review v. prior restraint
Resources for teacher background
Model guidelines for policy choices
What should go into an editorial policy? What should not?
Student media policy may be the most important decision you make
Suggestions for student media mission, legal, ethical and procedural language
Introducing a staff manual package to build a foundation for journalistic responsibility
Ethics codes are invaluable in student journalism, but not as guide for punishment
How to use this guide for ethical use of staff manuals
Muzzle Hazelwood with strong journalism status as an open public forum
Talking points on prior review and restraint
Dealing with unwanted, forced prior review?
Prior review v. prior restraint
Understanding the perils of prior review and restraint
Prior review imposes ineffective educational limits on learning, citizenship
Guidelines, recommendations for advisers facing prior review
Lesson step-by-step
Presentation – Day 1
The teacher will set up a discussion question for students about prior review and prior restraint.
The prompt follows:
Read these definitions:
- Prior review occurs when anyone not on the publication/media staff requires that he or she be allowed to read, view or approve student material before distribution, airing or publication.
- Prior restraint occurs when someone not on the publication/media staff requires pre-distribution changes to or removal of student media content
Once students ponder the definitions, they should read Prior review v. prior restraint.
The teacher should post the following:
• Create two lists, one supporting prior review and the other opposed to it. Based on readings, previous class work and the definitions, list up to 10 reasons each to oppose or support prior review
When they are satisfied, students would submit their lists to a third, blank, discussion board for use when they work to draft a prior review statement.
Presentation – Day 2 (Could be later or when working on staff manual)
Students will review their pro-con prior review statements and browse through Talking points on prior review and restraint
Using their review choices and other articles, students should each draft a prior review statement to be used with other manual statements on policy, ethics and procedure.
Assessment
Students should craft it as the focus for a short position paper:
• In no more than 150 words, craft a position statement on how to talk with administrators about prior review..
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