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Handling online comments QT34
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.
Read MoreSocial media that works
in high school newsrooms QT33
Social media has had such a profound effect on journalism that it’s sometimes hard to remember how traditional news functioned before it. Reading this 2009 MediaShift article is a powerful reminder that Twitter wasn’t always the source of breaking news. In fact, as author Julie Posetti wrote just eight years ago, “Some employers are either so afraid of the platform or so disdainful about its journalistic potential that they’ve tried to bar their reporters from even accessing Twitter in the workplace.”
Not accessing Twitter in the newsroom? It’s laughable now. Yet for some high school newsrooms, this is still the case. Overzealous school policies banning the use of various forms of social media and cell phones at school cripple student journalists who need to learn these tools in order to survive and thrive in our new media world.
However, setting students loose with social media journalism without strong guidelines is just as problematic. Just as professional news producers such as NPR have developed thorough social media policies, advisers should work with their student edition board to develop a robust social media policy for their own publications.
A place to start when tackling this task is to look to professional models like NPR’s. This recap of a 2014 panel about the ethics of social media news is another good resource. For scholastic guidance, check out JEA/SPRC’s foundation materials or this 2012 Social Media Toolbox masters project — though a bit dated, it still contains some great lessons and ideas. For help convincing administration of the value of social media in the newsroom, Quill & Scroll’s Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism has a strong rationale and additional resources.
As you develop your guidelines, however, it’s important to consider both sides of social media journalism: not only how to use it as a tool to share information or report a breaking story, but also how to use it as a reporter seeking information — the importance of verification so not to spread misinformation. For this second part of the equation, the Columbia Journalism Review’s “Best Practices for Social Media Verification” and the Online News Association’s Social Newsgathering Ethics Code are good places to start.
Our student journalists deserve to use the same tools as the professionals, but they also need the same caliber of ethics and responsible practices to guide them. These guidelines must be specific, yet flexible, as social media platforms are constantly evolving. With guidance for how to post to social media as a journalist and how to use it as a reporting tool, students will be uniquely poised to take new media journalism to places we can’t yet even imagine.
Guideline:
Journalists should hold to the same ethical standards and guidelines for their use of social media as they do for print or broadcast. Editors should devise a social media guide with clear expectations and make sure all staff members are trained in the procedures before providing username and password information for shared social media accounts.
Social Media Post:
How can students use social media effectively in high school newsrooms?
Reasoning/suggestions:
Social media has become a critical part of commercial journalism: adult reporters use social media both as a reporting tool and as a news source. Student reporters should also use social media to distribute and research news, but they — like adults — need clear guidelines for its use.
Student journalists should hold their social media posts to the same standards as print, digital or broadcast news. Examining commercial social media policies and these JEA/SPRC guidelines will provide a foundation for editors to develop their own publication policy. Student reporters also need strategies for verifying information gathered from social media posts. The Columbia Journalism Review’s “Best Practices for Social Media Verification” includes tips from experts to help students use these sources.
Resources:
JEA/SPRC Social Media Use, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
NPR ethics handbook: social media, NPR
SXSWi 2014: Accurate, Fair & Safe: The Ethics of Social News, Storify
Social media toolbox, Hendrix Project
The value of using social media in journalism, Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism
Best practices for social media verification, Columbia Journalism Review
ONA Social Newsgathering Ethics Code, Online News Association
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Reflections on the Dallas convention
by Cyndi Hyatt
Everything really is BIG in Texas.
And the 2017 JEA/NSPA convention in Dallas was no exception. More than 5,000 attendees celebrated student journalism. I was awed and inspired by the BIG voices of the student journalists whose passion and enthusiasm for what they do is more important than ever.
The Dallas conference was full of students from California to Pennsylvania, from Texas to Minnesota, who love student media and who understand the importance of being able to use their voices. Student journalists inquire and investigate; they initiate and sometimes they irritate (especially those who find the truth uncomfortable and threatening), but they enthusiastically find and tell stories that are engaging and important to not only fellow students but to us all.
Look at the Pittsburg Six from the Booster Redux newspaper in Kansas whose investigative initiative led to discovering their high school principal falsified her credentials. They are a perfect example of BIG student journalists at their best: their weeks-long investigation and subsequent story led to the resignation of their new principal.
What a difference their voices made.
In Dallas students gathered at sessions to hone their skills and to learn from the pros, advisers and even fellow student journalists. They attended sessions on photojournalism, interviewing, writing, reporting and converging. Even more importantly, they learned how to be ethical with their voices and about what they can say without administrative interference. At the end of the conference they left bolstered with new and sharpened skills and a strengthened inspiration for telling stories and telling them well.
Student journalists: continue to GO BIG with your voices. And never forget the 45 words that protect you and allow you to keep your voices healthy and loud, alive and proud.
Read MoreJournalists shouldn’t be ‘pawn in game of life’
by Stan Zoller, MJE
A classic scene from Mel Brooks’ classic, “Blazing Saddles,” is when the ox-riding Neanderthal, Mongo, played by the late Alex Karras, professes to Bart the Sheriff, played by the late Cleavon Little, that “Mongo only pawn in game of life.”
It’s a funny scene, but when you apply the “pawn in the game of life” scenario to scholastic journalism, it loses its humor.
This appears to be the case with the student journalists on the staff of the Evasntonian, the student newspaper at Evanston (Illinois) Township High School.
After the Sept. 22 paper was confiscated by the English Department chairman, reportedly because of a spread students did on student-use of marijuana, questions began to emerge as to why the department chair took the action even though Principal Marcus Campbell knew of the spread. In emails obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, Campbell told some colleagues that “you may get questions, but state law prohibits school administrators from censuring student publications” (sic).
At face value there is reason to be optimistic, albeit a little, on two fronts. The first is that an administrator knows about Illinois’ recently enacted New Voices law, and secondly, he has indicated he’s not going to challenge it.
So why would a subordinate, in this case the English Department chair, over rule him? Good question.
Several sources have told me there are long-standing differences of opinion between the department chair and the adviser and, so it seems she wanted the last word, even it meant usurping the authority of principal.
The perceived personality issue spilled over to the Board of Education, which on Oct. 9 heard from student journalists and representatives of various community organizations. As previously reported on this site, one school board member called for a discussion during open session at the next school board meeting, Nov. 13.
No big deal. However, following a FOI request requesting emails about the Evanstonian situation, the Nov. 13 School Board meeting was highlighted by a 45-minute ripping of the Board member for emailing student journalists and the adviser.
While the terse and unprecedented exchange was the focus of the meeting, what was lost was the resolution of the Evanstonian situation.
According to one of the paper’s student editors, after a meeting with the superintendent, principal and department chair, it was determined that questions relating to the publication would be handled by the principal. According to one student editor, he does not plan to regulate or manipulate the publication’s content. Hopefully he’ll be more proactive.
So, what lies ahead? A lot of monitoring. With the adviser retiring this year, the door is, unfortunately, wide open for the administration to morph the program into its own image by setting strict guidelines for the new adviser.
It will be imperative, albeit a challenge, for journalism educators in the Chicago area to work with the new adviser, perhaps as a JEA mentor, or perhaps through membership in the Illinois Journalism Education Association (IJEA).
No matter what level of experience the new adviser will have, she will need to be well versed on Illinois Public Act 99-0678, the Speech Rights of Scholastic Journalists Act.
The need is simple – to ensure a free and responsible student media at the school – and to keep the student journalists from once again being pawns.
Read MoreAcademic dishonesty lessens media effectiveness QT32
Dishonesty compromises the integrity and credibility of the student publication. The editorial board and/or adviser should address any instance of academic misconduct immediately.
Student editors should develop a clear process for handling academic dishonesty. Both media staff and school policies may dictate consequences for academic dishonesty. In addition to school consequences, other approaches could include removal or suspension from the media staff and publishing an apology.
Guidelines
Students should be honest in all stages of their work. Dishonesty is a serious offense and should not be tolerated. Dishonesty compromises the integrity and credibility of the student publication. The editorial board and/or adviser should address any instance of academic misconduct immediately.
Question: How should student media handle academic dishonesty?
Stance
Student editors should develop a clear process for handling academic dishonesty. Both media staff and school policies may dictate consequences for academic dishonesty. In addition to school consequences, other approaches could include removal or suspension from the media staff and publishing an apology.
Suggestions
In journalism, academic dishonesty is not limited to cheating and plagiarism. Issues especially relevant to student media include:
- Fabrication — inventing quotes or other content
- Non-contextual content — taking quotes, facts or other content out of their intended context in a way that misleads the audience
- Manipulation of photos, video and text — editing or altering content in a way to change its meaning or misrepresent reality
- Inadequate verification — failing to assure the veracity of information, quotes or facts for your story.
Resources
The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity, The Center for Academic Integrity
Journalism Department Code of Ethics and Conduct, San Francisco State University
The Medill Justice Project Ethics Book, Northwestern University
Our cheating culture: Plagiarism and fabrication are unacceptable in journalism, The Buttry Diary
Audio: Plagiarism, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
National Press Photographers Code of Ethics Audio: Creative Commons Licensing, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
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