Handling sponsored content
Student media, when faced with publishing sponsored content, should act carefully and with the best interests of the audience/consumer first.
Although it is quite possible scholastic media will never face making a decision to run content known as sponsored or native ads, students and advisers should prepare guidelines just in case.
Sponsored content and native advertising, two media terms for paid materials, are becoming a fact of life for media and consumers. That said, student media, when faced with publishing them, should act carefully and with the best interests of the audience/consumer first.
Scholastic media owe it to their audiences to expect clearly sourced and non-slanted information, particularly with so much concern with fake news.
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Introducing a staff manual package to build
a foundation for journalistic responsibility
Mission, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and public forum
strengthen the classic media staff manual
Four concepts drive the creation of journalistic approaches: mission statement, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and staff manual process. Together, the four comprise a package of complementary principles we call the Foundation of Journalism, often known as a staff manual. Through our discussions, lessons and models, we hope to demonstrate the essential rationale for adding strength them into the Legal and Ethical section of the staff manual.
These principles represent the key pillars of standards-based journalism and are the products of perhaps the most important journalistic decisions the student staff can make. Together, the concepts enhance the strengthen the process and product, the decision-making and critical thinking that can characterize student media.
This first section provides information and resources on how and why the four parts of the manual work together, and is below. All five pieces, introduction, mission, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and staff manual, are designed to interact and show and why each develop and apply to your school’s student media.
SPRC legal and ethical staff manual
What is it/definition: The SPRC’s manual package contains information and resources that create a framework for a school’s journalism publication and learning program – Mission Statements, Editorial Policy, Ethical Guidelines and Staff Manual process. It also includes resources on forums for student expression.
Visual to accompany the Law-ethics package. This material has been used at JEA.NSPA conventions to introduce the entire sequence of materials.
Important items of note: JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee presents ideas, models and language, but does not recommend cut and paste of precise wording or inclusion of entire content or model. We also stress the concept that policy and ethical guidelines are different and should not be noted in the same section in the manual.
Guideline: Each student media should have basic statements, a Foundation or cornerstone, compromised of a mission statement, editorial policy, ethical guidelines and staff manual that protects student free expression, explains why that is essential and shows how each element depends on the others. This Foundation should be based on journalistic standards, best practices and encompass journalism’s social responsibility.
Student best practice: Students should make all final decisions of content, without prior review by school officials and be designated public forums for student expression. All pieces should support that premise.
Quick Tips:
Student media policy may be the most important decision you make: Students should understand they can and should adopt best legal and ethical practices for their student media, both at the board and school level.
What should go into an editorial policy? What should not?Editorial policies are the foundations for your journalism program. Often short, these statements address forum status, who makes final decisions of contentand prior review. Think of it this way: a strong policy is prescriptive. It says what students will do. A policy is like a constitution and sets the legal framework for student media. We strongly discourage the inclusion of ethical guidelines or procedures and process in policy documents because ethics and staff manual procedures are suggestive.
SPRC blog commentary
Five activities to consider before next fall: Looking for end-of-year activities to rebuild or revisit how your student media operate, the range and effectiveness of content, no matter the platform?
Consider this process at the end of the year or during summer staff retreats, to help students strengthen your program’s foundation.
SPRC blog reporting
The Foundations of Journalism: Policy, procedure, guidelines: These concepts represent best practices. We do not urge copying the entirety of anyone’s policy, including ours. Instead, we urge students and adviser to mold a sound policy based on their school’s needs and identity. Modify our elements in your words.Based on these concepts: no censorship/restraint by any school official, no prior review by any school official, designation of all student media as public forums for student expression and that students make all final content decisions.
Student voices, student choice:By adopting policiesand guidelinesthat are student voice friendly in policy and practice, schools can further embrace empowerment of student voices and authority.
Building foundations for great journalism:It is critically important to build a solid foundation in law and ethics before sending students out for that first assignment.
Handout: Foundations topic draft form:A planning form for developing ethical and staff manual guidelines.
Building student media foundations with policy and ethics: This project is a two-fold effort to combine policy, ethics and staff manual procedure into an integrated process where policy sets the stage for ethical guidelines and ethical guidelines shape staff manual procedure. It is designed to tie directly to The Foundations of Journalism: Policy, procedure, guidelines.
Build a strong foundation by locking in pieces of the puzzle called journalism:
Preparing student media for a new year often begins with design — and theme-planning. For a good number this includes summer workshops for training in reporting platforms, visual reporting approaches and the latest in apps and across-platform developments. We hope such training also includes the basics of law and ethics. Often, we fear it does not.
Lesson to help students formulate policies, guidelines and procedures:In this lesson, Students will analyze current policies and write guidelines and procedures. Students will then analyze the others’ classwork and provide feedback. Students will be able to rewrite their contribution after the feedback is given. Students will also audit the publication’s diversity.
JEA law/ethics curriculum:
Ethical Guidelines and Procedure Statements: Creating the Foundation In this lesson, students will analyze current policies and write guidelines and procedures. Students will then analyze the others’ classwork and provide feedback. Students will be able to rewrite their contribution after the feedback is given. Students will also audit the publication’s diversity.
With Freedom of the Press Comes Great Responsibility Students should have a basic understanding of their responsibility to provide fair, balanced and accurate content that is complete and coherent. From studying examples of content and role-playing on situations that they may have to address, this lesson prepares students for the kinds of decisions they will make with their own publication.
Understanding Journalistic Forum Status The 1988Hazelwood v KuhlmeierU.S. Supreme Court decision created a need for students and advisers to understand what forum status means for all scholastic media. This lesson defines the three types of forums and outlines what each could mean for students. The lesson also enables student journalists to choose which forum best meets their needs and take steps to create that forum.
Creating a Mission Statement for Student Media Everyone has seen mission statements that contain “educate and entertain” as key goals for scholastic media. The purpose of this lesson is to create mission statements that go beyond generic wording. Instead, mission statements should help establish who student journalists are, their role, and their purpose. Establishing this framework will also shape audience understanding about media roles, purposes and identity, including the social responsibility role that even student journalists must uphold.
Podcast/RPM:
Board media policies:This clip explains why a shorter, simple board-level student media policy is recommended and outlines three clear points such policies should establish.
A combined editorial policy: As more student media programs take a comprehensive approach to produce all types of scholastic media under one staff structure, it only makes sense to combine separate publications policies into one.
Resources
Ethics codes are invaluable in student journalism, but not as a guide for punishment,
Sitemap of inclusive materials, go here
How to Use the List of Ethics and Staff manuals, gohere.
Crafting the Argument Against Prior Review and Censorship
Building the case against prior review and restraint: talking points to help start a discussion between advisers and administrators
Related Content: Mission statements | Editorial policy | Ethical Guidelines | Staff manual
| Prior review | Prior review | Censorship |
Read MoreMission sets the path for content, decisions
Mission statement
What is it/definition: A mission statement is a concise, philosophical statement of purpose and goals for student media. It establishes the ethical and practical concepts by which the student media should be expected to operate and why students do what they do.
Important items of note: We strongly believe mission statements should be more than “to entertain and educate” as those points do not stress guiding the whys and whats of a mission.
Guideline: A mission statement defines your student media, shows your audience what’s important to you and helps them see why you do what you do. It’s not easy to write an effective one.Our model would look like this:
_____________ (school name) student media provide complete and accurate coverage, journalistically responsible, ethically gathered, edited and reported. Student-determined expression promotes democratic citizenship through public engagement diverse in both ideas and representation.
Student best practice: You need a mission statement, and we think ours is worth consideration. We also share some points to think about as you write your own or adapt what we offered:
- Audience engagement.Think about the importance of getting your audience to think and hopefully to act. Your mission should be to create media to get and keep them involved.
- Journalistic responsibility.Point out the basis of solid journalism you want as the very heart of your media: truth, integrity, completeness and accuracy.
- Additional reporting basics. Make sure your audience knows it can trust you because you also offer context to put reporting in perspective, verification that shows you double-checked, coherence that ensures it makes sense and presents all relevant information.
- Ethical reporting and editing. To complete the reporting process, present your work ethically and to professional standards for your audiences.
- Student-determined content. It should make a difference to your audience that students are in charge and decide all content for your student media. It definitely makes a difference to courts, too.
- Diversity of ideas and representation.It’s not just one clique that runs your student media. All voices contribute ideas and have representation in your media.
- Platform consistency. It’s not a newspaper policy and a separate wbroadcasteb, yearbook or TV station policy. As all media providers realize they are connected and each telling a story in the best way possible, it’s important the school’s media share the same policies and ethical approaches.
- School mission statement connection.It shouldn’t be surprising that school mission statements often mention the same points student media do: building thinking citizens, preparing students for democracy, etc. Tie parts of your media mission statement to those as well
Quick Tip:This information is part of a four-part series designed to help students build mission states and shape them into workable parts of the Foundation concept.:
Part 1: Build a strong foundation
Part 2: Careful preparation creates strong mission statements
Part 3: Points to avoid in mission statements
Part 4: Fitting the pieces into a strong Foundation
Responsibility in scholastic media starts with ethics, accuracy, complete story:Administrators may want student media to depict the school in a positive light, that promotes good news and overlooks the negative.
Is this responsible journalism?
Empowering student decision-making: The role of the adviser in student-run media incorporates teacher, coach, counselor, listener and devil’s advocate but not doer. We like theJEA Adviser Code of Ethicsas guides for advisers.That role means letting students make all decisions including content, context and grammar.
Quick Tips index A list of nearly 70 journalism processes showing the interaction between every day journalistic processes and actions and ethical principles.
Podcast/RPM:
SPRC blogs
Policy and ethics sitemap:Learn what goes together ln a law and ethics Handbook. We think the policy section should come right after the mission statement since it sets the stage for all other areas. That choice remains yours.
Careful preparation creates strong mission statements: A mission statement defines your student media, shows your audience what’s important to you and helps them see why you do what you do.
Points to avoid in mission statementsAs with any guiding statement, unclear, undefinable or imprecise wording can lead to misinterpretation of intended principles. We suggest mission statements do not include these terms:
Revisit your mission to empower scholastic journalists:Hopefully your publication has a mission statement as a key part of the editorial policies in your staff handbook. Even better, this mission statement is revisited and, if needed, revised at the start of each year.
Journalistic integrity guides scholastic media: 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.
Free press––why students should make all decisions of content: For students to prepare themselves for their roles in a democracy, they must be able to practice guarantees of the First Amendment, knowing they can make a difference.
Second day concerns It’s not the first day of school that has me worried. It’s the second.
St. Louis Park’s first day involves some get-to-know-you activity, but we start content on the second. And this is why I’m worried. With the summer of fake news and recent news of the events of Charlottesville, Virginia, I want my students to understand why what they do is so important. So, on the second day, we will revisit our mission statement.
SPLC resources:
Other resources:
JEA law/ethics curriculum:
Creating a Mission Statement for Student Media Everyone has seen mission statements that contain “educate and entertain” as key goals for scholastic media. The purpose of this lesson is to create mission statements that go beyond generic wording. Instead, mission statements should help establish who student journalists are, their role, and their purpose. Establishing this framework will also shape audience understanding about media roles, purposes and identity, including the social responsibility role that even student journalists must uphold. This lesson works best when used before the Creating an Editorial Policy lesson and after the Mission Planning lessons.
Related Content: Foundation/ Staff Guidelines |Policy | Ethics | Staff Manual | Prior Review | Restraint | Censorship
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Constitution Day highlights from previous years
As we brainstormed ideas for this version of Constitution Day, we realized how many previous activities and lessons were still relevant today. Here are our top eight. If you’d like to revisit the previous years’ lesson and ideas, we’ve included links to each year at the end of the page.
Celebrating Constitution Day (Lori Keekley, 2015): This activity encourages the English, social studies and journalism teachers to engage students in exploring the Constitution’s relevance to their daily lives, facts about the Constitution and understanding the amendments to the Constitution
First Amendment School Dialogue (Jeff Kocur, 2017): Guide your students through a class-sized (or whole-school) dialogue about the five freedoms of the First Amendment. Students will identify and evaluate the impact of the First Amendment in their own lives and the lives of others.
The Importance of an Independent and Active Press (Matthew Smith, 2017): Expose students to the many possible benefits of independent media in a democracy through quotes and video excerpts of world leaders espousing the necessity of a free press. Students will evaluate and discuss their own reaction to these arguments.
Understanding the perils of prior review and restraint (Jeff Kocur, 2015): Click here for the activity. For additional resources and model ethical guidelines and staff manual procedures for this, go here and here.
Examining the gray area between political correctness and free speech (Matthew Smith, 2016): Students will explore several topics through peer discussion and real-world examples in small groups followed by a large-group discussion. By Matt Smith
The Decision to Report: Because You Can, Does that Mean you Should? (Jeff Kocur, 2013): Allows students to explore the conflict of reporting the truth when that truth may have consequences. Students work with several leading questions and apply them to several scenarios.
Our Right to Comment (Jeff Kocur, 2016): Since media organizations have moved to online formats, they have struggled with the practice of hosting online comments next to their content. Many news organizations require posters to meet specific standards, moderate the comments, and reserve the right to remove or delete comments and users. Some organizations even require each post be approved by a human before it can be live on their sites. More recently, NPR is the latest news organization to completely remove comments from its news sites. Students will explore the question whether the ability to comment on news stories creates a more or less informed culture. By Jeff Kocur
Takedown demands (John Bowen, 2014): This lesson addresses how to handle takedown requests. Students will work through two scenarios and then create a takedown request policy.
Previous Constitution Day lessons and activities by years:
Read MoreImportance of scale in visual reporting QT67
Guideline:
Journalists must be vigilant in ensuring charts and infographics do not inaccurately depict the information nor should it mislead the reader. Be weary of data interpretations from others — especially those who benefit from the results.
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