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 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.
Read More
Decision-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
The issues with April Fools coverage QT 11
April Fool’s issues are fake news and can damage student media’s credibility.
Yes, some find them acceptable, but their negatives far outweigh their positives. The ultimate question is are they worth the risks?
As a publication that strives for authentic, storytelling journalism for your community, breaking that convention for a satirical, or even mean, publication is counter to the principles good journalists should strive for. When you break the conventions and principles for which you are known to produce satire, you may be opening yourself up to charges of libel, obscenity, or even disruption. Satire is incredibly hard to do consistently well and correctly, and it is best left to the professionals who have far more protection.
Guidelines: April Fools issues have little to no journalistic value and do not advance the brand of student media. As a result, students should not publish an April Fool’s issue.
Question: Are April Fool’s issues and satire worth the risk? What is the journalistic value of publishing April Fools materials?
Key points/action: If your goal is to publish factual stories with impact and significance, then publishing April Fools material and other fake news may not be your priority. To publish information you know is false might lead to other legal and ethical issues, but if your media are designated public forums, that would be your choice and your responsibility.
Students publishing information they know is not true would be well advised to have a good grasp of legal and ethical journalistic standards.
Professionals have mastered the art of satire and comedy as a form of news reporting, but does that mean we should be trying to teach it in high school? Publications like The Onion have shown us satire can tell stories at the same time that they entertain, but can we effectively teach students to master the same skill
Stance: There are no quick and easy absolutes. Students need to balance their free expression rights with their mission and social responsibility to truth, accuracy and verified reporting. School publications put themselves at great risk when they publish April Fool’s issues and/or satire.
Reasoning/suggestions: Publishing something knowingly false raises significant legal issues of libel and malice and the newly concerning fake news plague. Decisions to choose a path that brings your student media into conflict with serious legal and ethical issues would have to fulfill essential media missions and goals.
Professional publications engaging in satire do so with a clear brand. Most of the public clearly recognizes the convention of the medium, and that gives it much more protection. Your student publication does not have the same brand.
As a publication that strives for authentic, storytelling journalism from your community, breaking that convention for a satirical publication is counter to the principles good journalists should strive for. When you break the conventions and principles for which you are known to produce satire, you may open yourselves to charges of libel, obscenity or even disruption. Satire is incredibly hard to do consistently well and correctly, and it is best left to the professionals who have far more protection.
Resources:
April Fools’ negatives outweigh positives, usually don’t fulfill techniques of satire
SPLC article: The joke is on these college editors — offensive April Fools humor can backfire badly
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 MoreFree press–why students should
make decisions of content QT7
For students to prepare themselves for their roles in a democracy, they must be able to practice guarantees of the First Amendment, thus knowing they can make a difference.
Free expression in student media helps students learn to make critical decisions for which they are responsible, to develop integrity in their journalistic practice as well as their thinking and to engage with people on issues of importance and interest.
Without this freedom, as First Amendment expert Nat Hentoff said, the Constitution and America’s heritage would be little more than parchment under glass, outdated, fragile and sterile.
Without this freedom student journalists would be mouthing approved platitudes that are not real. Censored news is fake news; it is incomplete news and contributes little if anything to public awareness and informed civic engagement.
Policy
If you’re developing a new policy, the Scholastic Press Rights Committee recommends using language something like this:
[Name of publication] is a designated public forum for student expression. Student editors make all content decisions without prior review from school officials.
Question:
Why should students make decisions?
Key points/action:
For students to prepare themselves for their roles in a democracy, they must be able to practice guarantees of the First Amendment, thus knowing they can make a difference.
Free expression in student media helps students learn to make critical decisions for which they are responsible, to develop integrity in their journalistic practice as well as their thinking and to engage with people on issues of importance and interest.
Stance:
Without this freedom, as First Amendment expert Nat Hentoff said, the Constitution and America’s heritage would be little more than parchment under glass, outdated, fragile and sterile.
Without this freedom student journalists would be mouthing approved platitudes that are not real. Censored news is fake news; it is incomplete news and contributes to public misunderstanding and mistrust.
Reasoning/suggestions:
“Without journalism, democratic life dies from lack of oxygen,” Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, writes: “Without democracy, journalism loses its heartbeat. Without a serious study of journalism there can be no understanding of citizenship, democracy or community.”
Resources:
JEA statement on student free expression in a vibrant and flourishing democracy
With power comes great responsibility
First Amendment and the obligation to peacefully disrupt in a free society
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