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The next Woodward and Bernstein may be in your journalism class now
by Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE
Some say the next wave of great investigative journalists may be getting inspired now. Do you have a Pulitzer winner on YOUR staff? Are you teaching someone who could investigate the next Watergate break-in? What can you do to encourage him or her?
Sure, plenty of problems face today’s reporters: financial challenges for traditional newspapers, less-than-impressive wages, an attitude at the highest level of government that says media are the enemy, sometimes even threats of jail.
But Margaret Sullivan in the Fall 2017 Columbia Journalism Review had some good insight in her “Trump and the Watergate effect: Will young journalists still be inspired by today’s watchdog reporting?”
She remembers watching the Watergate hearings on tv as a child and realizing Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein made this all happen. “What these journalists did offered not only an important mission, but a gritty, roll-up-your-sleeves glamour. So, thanks to Watergate, Woodstein and Deep Throat, I was launched. And so were a generation of baby-boomer journalists—thousands of us. Some were in college in the mid ’70s. Others, like me, were in high school, or even younger.”
[pullquote]Will the reporters who are covering the Trump era — which, in some ways, is like the Nixon era with a special prosecutor, investigations into corruption and talk of possible impeachment — inspire today’s high school and college students to go into this career that can have a huge impact?[/pullquote]
In today’s world of fake news, of chants to lock up journalists and of an attorney general who appears willing to prosecute those involved in leaks, is there still a calling?
Will the reporters who are covering the Trump era — which, in some ways, is like the Nixon era with a special prosecutor, investigations into corruption and talk of possible impeachment — inspire today’s high school and college students to go into this career that can have a huge impact?
How do we help recruit the best and the brightest to make a difference for us all?
First, we need to refute some of the arguments against a journalism career. Sure, some newspapers are struggling and cutting staff, but some are not, and, more important, newspapers are not the only venue even for investigative journalists.
The Pew Research Center reports, “In the U.S., roughly nine-in-ten adults (93 percent) get news online (either via mobile or desktop), and the online space has become a host for the digital homes of both legacy news outlets and new, ‘born on the web’ news outlets.”
Exposés don’t have to appear only in the New York Times. According to The Guardian, blogs have revealed everything from contaminated dog food to a reduced number of U.S. attorneys. Good journalists can be there, too.
Then we have to convince students what those following the Watergate era knew: They CAN make a difference. The watchdog role of the media is still vital in a democracy, and, without it, we’ve lost the foundation of our government.
What do today’s college students think?
Ben Orner, senior journalism major at Kent State University, said his high school interest in covering sports grew when he reached college. “I was able to make the connections between my news consumption, what I was learning in classes and how this could have an impact.”
He said he can see how journalism makes a difference. “Whether it’s big like Watergate or like corruption in the local city council,” he said he sees how journalists have make a difference.
“The ‘Trump Era’ inspires young journalists to hold their leaders accountable,” he said.
Kent State sophomore broadcast major Gretchen Lasso said she thinks the recent political climate has made her a more vocal journalist. She acknowledges when she arrived on campus she was not a very critical media consumer. “Now I’m better able to analyze news and decide if it’s credible.”
She said criticism of the media has made her “work harder to verify my own sources” and be a better journalist in the future.
Who knows if Ben and Gretchen will be future Woodwards and Bernsteins, but today’s media climate has served to challenge and inspire them. Could that happen to students in high school now?
Our democracy needs watchdogs who are willing to consider low pay and taunts from some crowds as the price to pay for a better democracy.
Read More
What, students have rights? Since 1943
(West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette)
Quick Tip27: Student First Amendment rights
by Jan Ewell
Before the Barnette decision, when students came into conflict with public schools, the courts decided their cases—often against the students—without mentioning students’ right. They considered if the punishment was excessive (beating with a rawhide strap was okay in 1859). They also debated if it was the parents’ right or the schools’ right to discipline the students. The First Amendment was never mentioned.
Gathie and Marie Barnett* were attending Slip Hill Grade School in Charleston, West Virginia, when America entered World War II in December, 1941. The school district installed flags in classrooms (replacing pictures of flags) and required all students to salute the flag. The West Virginia State Board of Education passed rules in January 1942 requiring the flag salute and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, which Congress would formally adopt June, 1942.
The Barnett family, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, felt the practice of saluting the flag was a form of idolatry and would be a violation of their religion. As Gathie said some 60 years after the case, “We were taught that bowing down to the flag, saluting it, was like a bowing down and giving reverence to it—it was like an idol. So we believe definitely not to worship idols.”
[pullquote]If there is a fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official high or petty shall prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by work or acts their faith therein.”––Justice Robert H. Jackson[/pullquote]
The Supreme Court released its decision in the students’ favor on Flag Day, June 14, 1943.
The decision: Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote these memorable words in favor of students’ rights: “If there is a fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official high or petty shall prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by work or acts their faith therein.”
Though the Supreme Court did not specifically address student press rights until 1988, the Barnette case is essential to student journalists. It limits the government’s ability to restrict religion, the first freedom in the Bill of Rights. It found public schools are the government. It established that students as young as elementary school are protected by the First Amendment .
Justice Jackson wrote, “That we are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.
*A court clerk misspelled their name as Barnette
Resources:
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Read MoreDealing 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.
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Muzzle Hazelwood with strong journalism,
status as an open public forum
Dean v. Utica Community Schools, 2004
Quick Tip 25: Student First Amendment Rights
by Jan Ewell
The principal of Utica High School told the student newspaper, the Arrow, to cut an article by student journalist Katy Dean, as well as an accompanying editorial and an editorial cartoon. The students had written about a couple, Rey and Joanne Frances, who were suing the school district. They claimed idling diesel buses in the school garage next to their home had caused the husband’s cancer.
Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier allows administrators to censor for “legitimate pedagogical concerns.” The principal said that the articles were based on “unreliable” sources and that the article was “highly inaccurate.” Perhaps these reasons were given as his legitimate pedagogical concerns.
The students published a black box with the word “Censored” across it in white lettering, and an editorial on censorship. A local newspaper later published Dean’s censored article.
The case was decided in the United States District Court in Katy Dean’s favor because of the Arrow’s status as a limited public forum, and on the quality of the journalism.
Establishing a Public Forum in Practice and Policy
The judge ruled that the student paper was a public forum, even though it was produced by a class for school credit. He used the nine criteria established in Draudt v. Wooster.[link] Because it was a public forum and therefore under Tinker v. Des Moines not under Hazelwood, the principal had violated the students’ rights.
To determine if the paper was a public forum, the judge looked at the practice of the publication. In its 25 year history, the officials at the school had never intervened in the editorial process of the publication. The students had no practice of submitting content to school officials for prior review, nor did the faculty adviser regulate the topics the newspaper covered. In practice the paper was a public forum.
School policy also supported the “Arrow’s” status as a public forum. The curriculum guide and the course descriptions provided evidence that it should enjoy the protections of Tinker.
Clarifying When Censorship is Permissible Under Hazelwood
Though the judge ruled the paper was under the Tinker standard, he also closely examined the censored article by Katy Dean using the Hazelwood standards of fairness, research and writing. He found that, even under Hazelwood, “the suppression of the article was unconstitutional.” The school officials had claimed the work was “inaccurate” because they disagreed with the opinions of people quoted in the story. What the district called “inaccurate” was simply an attempt to disguise “what is, in substance, a difference of opinion with its content,” the judge wrote. Even under the Hazelwood standard, the officials had violated the students’ rights.
[pullquote]Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” –– Harry S. Truman [/pullquote]
In his decision, the judge quoted President Harry S. Truman: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
He also quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.”
Dean v. Utica shows two avenues for student journalists to free themselves from Hazelwood. The first is to be a public forum in either “policy or practice.” The second is to produce high quality journalism.
Resources:
Dean v. Utica Community Schools
http://jea.org/home/curriculum-resources/deancase/
Read MoreDecision-making for most student broadcasts
protected same as print, online QT24
As more schools expand their journalism programs to include broadcast and radio, it should be clear how Tinker and Hazelwood positively or negatively affect broadcast programs.
The answer is: it depends.
If they go out over the broadcast airways, Federal Communications Commission regulations apply.
If not, they are not subject to the broadcast-only regulations.
But most student radio and television stations are not truly “broadcast.” They don’t go out over the airwaves but are transmitted via the Internet or a cable or closed circuit system.
In that case, their status is the same as print and online publications.
And, if they are public forums for student expression … check out Quick Tip24, below.
Quick Tips: Broadcast programs and media law
Question: How does media law apply to student television and radio programs?
Key points/action
Student television and radio journalists and their advisers frequently ask how the laws apply to them? Do they have the same free press rights as other student journalists? Are they subject to additional restrictions because of the medium in which they produce content?
The short answers: yes and no.
Stance: Radio and television programming that goes out over the broadcast airwaves via a license from the federal government is subject to additional restrictions on content.
Regulations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission on broadcast stations include limitations on the airing of “indecent” content and requirements that the station air content that serves the public interest.
But most student radio and television stations are not truly “broadcast.” They don’t go out over the airwaves but are transmitted via the Internet or a cable or closed circuit system.
Reasoning/suggestions:
Because these types of stations are not licensed by the FCC, they are not subject to the broadcast-only regulations.
For all these student television and radio programs, the rules that apply to your content are the same that apply to student newspapers, magazines, yearbooks and websites.
The key Supreme Court decisions are Tinker v. Des Moines and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Students at public schools are entitled to protections from censorship based on the First Amendment.
Those protections are stronger if the program is operating as a designated public forum where students have been given the authority to make content decisions.
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