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The role of the adviser is multifold, but ethically, practically, not a doer QT20
The role of the adviser in student-run media incorporates teacher, coach, counselor, listener and devil’s advocate but not doer. We like the JEA Adviser Code of Ethics as guides for advisers.
That role means letting students make all decisions including content, context and grammar.
One way advisers can help this process is by having a staff manual inclusive of the student media mission statement, policies, guidelines and procedures. The mission statement outlines the overall aim of the student media. Policies are either the board-level or media-level and state the functionality of the student press. Guidelines are the ethical components the student media will work with. The procedures and resources for students to learn how to do something
Guidelines
As per the board-level or media-level policy, students should be empowered to make all content decisions for student media.
Key points/action:
If the term “student media” is to have meaning, then the role of the adviser should be just what it says: advise.
The role of the adviser in student-run media incorporates teacher, coach, counselor, listener and devil’s advocate but not doer.
That role means letting students make all decisions including content, context and grammar.
Stance:
Students learn best when they are empowered to make their own decisions with support from the adviser on the sideline. A clear understanding of the adviser’s role helps students take ownership of their work and the program overall.
Reasoning/suggestions:
To help teachers and advisers understand this role more completely, we recommend the JEA Adviser Code of Ethics as a starting point. We also recommend inclusion of a statement on the role of the adviser by noting the adviser code and a statement that students make all decisions of content. Advisers should advise and ask questions to help the students examine the issue from multiple perspectives and concerns.
One way advisers can help this process is by having a staff manual inclusive of the student media mission statement, policies, guidelines and procedures. The mission statement outlines the overall aim of the student media. Policies are either the board-level or media-level and state the functionality of the student press. Guidelines are the ethical components the student media will work with. The procedures and resources for students to learn how to do something.
If students know (or can look at what to do) what By already establishing these prior to a problem happening, it’s easier to see what to do when something does happen. (And, it will.) These policies, guidelines and procedures should function as a reference and be complete (preferably) prior to the problem happening. This helps the students (and adviser) work through issues if they do happen.
Resources: Adviser responsibility
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.
Teaching grit for citizenship — why we must empower, not shield students (related SPRC blog).
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Free 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.
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Tools of Truth: all lessons
All Tools of Truth lessons are listed, annotated here
Sloppy reporting
- Journalists as professional skeptics (2-part)
The first lesson explores ethical decision-making about what to publish and the importance of verification in that process. It is a case study that puts students in the role of an editor as they walk through a hypothetical story pitch and consequences of publishing an unverified story. The activity ends with a class reflection about best practices for verification and accountability. This lesson works best after teachers have already discussed how their schools are affected by state and federal laws (see SPLC First Amendment rights diagram) so students are familiar with their First Amendment rights as student journalists.
• The second lesson builds on the activity from the day before by discussing the purpose of skepticism during the reporting process by looking at a real-life situation where a professional journalist was duped. It also examines the balance between healthy skepticism and unhealthy cynicism.
• What happens when a journalist gets it wrong?
Inaccurate reporting is not the same as fake news, but it can carry the same consequence. What are the forces at play which compel journalists to strive for accuracy? How do media organizations stay accountable for the work of their journalists? What happens when a journalist makes a mistake, and what happens when a media outlet loses the trust of their audience and/or advertisers.
Why, and how, can two people be exposed to the exact same news story and interpret it differently? Why should this matter to journalists? People interpret the news differently depending on their cognitive schematic structure, or prior experiences. It’s important for journalists to understand this process so they can better understand how their audiences are interpreting the content they produce, and so they can ultimately use that information to help shape their content.
Fake news may just be incomplete news if it doesn’t provide the audience with enough context to really tell the story. That can happen with alternative story forms if they just add visuals and fluff but little real information. As The Poynter Institute’s Vicki Krueger describes them, these are “charticles, non-narratives, storytelling devices, ASFs and alts, among others. Some stand alone as a story, and some are supplemental: forms that clarify, complement and explain information in a traditional news story.” In her 10 ways to engage readers with alternative story forms, she offers guidelines for their use. However, a staff’s first decision is when and why to use them. Note that these are to CLARIFY and EXPLAIN INFORMATION to avoid misinforming the audience. While alternative story forms can add visual variety, their main purpose is to accurately convey information.
Critics accuse the news media of only reporting bad news, but journalists must investigate and report on problems. One alternative to reporting solely on the problem is to report on how people and communities are seeking to solve those problems. This form of investigative journalism is called “solutions journalism.” This lesson provides an introduction to solutions journalism and encourages student reporters to generate ideas about how they could use this approach in their own reporting.
The community gets information about what is happening at school through different publications, but not all of these publications are journalistic. In this lesson, students will differentiate between student reporting and school public relations by comparing and contrasting student publications with school public relations content such as newsletters, school-created magazines or school websites created and maintained by adults in the community.
Deceptive news
Interpretation, framing and sourcing
Why, and how, can two people be exposed to the exact same news story and interpret it differently? Why should this matter to journalists? People interpret the news differently depending on their cognitive schematic structure, or prior experiences. It’s important for journalists to understand this process so they can better understand how their audiences are interpreting the content they produce, so they can ultimately use that information to help shape their content
Journalists are taught to be objective, so they don’t “frame” stories” … or do they? Whether consciously or unconsciously, research suggests time and time again that what the media decides to cover, and how they cover it, ultimately influences what people find important and how they interpret the news. So it’s important for journalists to consider their story angle, word choice and even interview questions to be sure they don’t rely on social stereotypes, which could potentially be inaccurate, to tell their stories.
In the 21st century, we choose the media sources we consume in an increasingly passive manner. Stories show up in our news feeds and social media feeds, or in forwarded emails; often we don’t know the sources, or the sources look familiar, but they are from nefarious sources. Explore the changing nature of how we consume news, and help your students choose their information wisely.
Deceptive advertising
- What are native advertising/sponsored content and why should we be concerned about them and issues they raise.
- Resources for sponsored content
Questions of fake news and disinformation arise almost daily. Citizens also face information spread by sponsored content, an approach to storytelling designed to bring needed revenue to news media. The trouble is most readers and viewers cannot tell sponsored news from reported news. This lesson can help students understand how sponsored news developed, how to recognize it and ways to assist non-journalism communities in dealing with it.
Because of the rapid spread of sponsored content or native advertising, it is possible your students will have to decide whether to use them in their student media. Faced with that decision, what arguments would students raise and what decisions would they make – and why?
Because of the rapid spread of sponsored content, students may have to decide whether to accept sponsored content in their student media. How well can they recognize it and what would they do once they recognize it?
From previous lessons, student journalists should be aware of native ads and sponsored content and the importance of understanding the issues they raise. Now, they take this awareness and knowledge a step further and become the teachers to their various communities. They can use the positions they reported in the last lesson and inform others.
In this lesson, the teacher will lead students to create a Pinterest board that identifies native ads and sponsored content since it always helps to visually explain journalism terminology.
This lesson should follow other lessons on sponsored content. To help maintain student awareness of native ads and sponsored content, students will create Storify news stories and publish them to keep themselves and their communities aware of each.
Identification of Fake News
There has been a lot of talk lately about “fake news” because it has been particularly prevalent during the recent 2016 Presidential election campaign. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 62 percent of Americans get their news from social media sites and 44 percent get their news specifically from Facebook. Nearly 90 percent of millennials regularly get news from Facebook. In addition, a recent study from Stanford University revealed that many teens have difficulty analyzing the news; 82 percent of middle school students surveyed couldn’t tell the difference between an ad labeled “sponsored content” and a legitimate news story.
This lesson provides an opportunity for students to learn what fake news is, differentiate it from other types of news (including satirical, misleading and tabloid news), develop strategies for spotting fake news and consider what can be done about the proliferation of fake news.
Following the How to Spot Fake News lesson or Satire’s role in Current Events lesson (or perhaps even on its own or before the lesson), urge students to download the Jeopardy-style game to see how they really do in identifying fake news.
In this lesson, students explore propaganda techniques, and discuss how they are the targets of advertisers and politicians. Students will understand and identify how propaganda techniques are used to influence them into doing, feeling and believing a message that may or may not be of benefit to them. Students will create their own propaganda message using one (or more) of 11 known propaganda techniques. The key is to help students begin an awareness of, and the ability to identify, how their outlook on life is related to the messages they see. This lesson takes one 60-minute class period to complete.
In this lesson, students pick up where they left off in propaganda techniques as well as the concept of “spin” and discuss how politicians use these techniques to sway public opinion. Students will identify propaganda used in past and current ads and create their own advertisement using an assigned propaganda technique. Students will also examine how politicians spin current events to suit their own agendas and will assume the role of a prominent political figure’s communication representative who is responsible for spinning news events.
Censorship
In this noncontinuous lesson, students will localize the 2016 Gallup survey “Free Expression on Campus: A Survey of U.S. College Students and U.S. Adults.” Students will use their technical writing skills to craft the directions (teachers and students), questions similar to the Gallup questions, and an email in addition to tabulating and comparing the survey results. Students will then compare their results with the national results, create an infographic and then write a reflection of the process.
The lesson starts by providing a prompt in which students examine what they would like to cover, but feel they can’t for some reason. Discussion addresses why this self-censorship exists and examines whether this self-censorship should be abandoned.
Students and the public have a right to view many records kept by schools, municipalities, states and federal government. Students should review how to submit a public records request and understand the legal aspects of doing so.The Student Press Law Center also hosts an open records letter generator to make it easy to do. Most often, the Freedom of Information Act request will come at a time when you might be crunched for time. Use this lesson to become more familiar with your rights under the Freedom of Information Act.
Satire
Students are funny. Students are smart. But are they smart enough to be funny with satire in a way that advances the journalistic goals of the publication? Can they do it without violating the SPJ ethical guidelines or their own publications’ ethical guidelines? Use this lesson to help students understand purpose of satire as a journalistic tool.
• Satire in your publications; who is the joke really on?
Students think of themselves as smart and funny, but does that mean they can handle satire? Satire opens students up to many legal risks including libel and invasion of privacy. Use this activity to explore some of the pitfalls of using satire in your publications.
• Satire’s role in current events
According to Wyatt Mason in an online article published in the New York Times Magazine titled “My Satirical Self,” readers in the 21st century have “taken shelter in the ridiculous.” He provides an excerpt from The Onion, a satirical online news source referenced as “America’s Finest News Source,” as an example of an escape from the inescapable ridiculousness of society, politics, and other vice and follies. New literacies have helped grow the genre of satire, and as Americans turn to this genre as a source for news and entertainment, students must understand the core elements that create satire.
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Contributors
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Student media policy may be
the most important decision you make QT4
Guideline
Students should understand while they can and should adopt best legal practices and ethical guidelines for their publication, the school district’s or school board’s media policy (if one exists) could impact the legal and ethical decisions of student editors.
Key thoughts/Action: Possible guidelines (three options)
This reality does not preclude students from exercising their best ethical judgment. Rather, it is an incentive for them to advocate for their role and for district-level policy that protects student journalists.
Possible policy 1:
[NAME OF SCHOOL] student media are designated public forums in which students make all decisions of content without prior review by school officials.
Comment: This contains only the basic statement of journalistic responsibility. It is usable at the board level to outline the basic principles of external oversight, leaving the process to other internal packages, like ethics guidelines and staff manuals. This removes from consideration the possibility of board attempts to change process-oriented direction.
A short statement like this clearly establishes the principles and responsibilities that guide all other statements. With no prior review added to it, it has the three crucial points in a policy: (1) designated public forum status in which (2) students make all final decisions regarding content and (3) do so without prior review. Decisions on matters such as letters, bylines, staff disciplinary actions, coverage of death and more are best detailed in ethical guidelines and staff manuals.
Possible policy 2:
[NAME OF SCHOOL] student media are designated public forums in which students make all decisions of content without prior review from school officials.
Freedom of expression and press freedom are fundamental values in a democratic society.
The mission of any institution committed to preparing productive citizens must include teaching these values and providing a venue for students to practice these values, both by lesson and by example.
As preservers of democracy, our schools shall protect, encourage and enhance free speech and the exchange of ideas as a means of protecting our American way of life.
[NAME OF MEDIA] and its staff are protected by and bound to the principles of the First Amendment and other protections and limitations afforded by the Constitution and the various laws and court decisions implementing those principles.
Comment: Again, this board-level model policy removes process details from being points of board action or meddling. It also introduces educational and philosophical language to give administrators insight into and understanding of why student media do what they do. It can aid in community understanding and support of the forum process.
This policy is slightly longer because it adds philosophical wording to support the decision-making without review. This policy could be effective at the board level because it allows others points to be explained in the ethics guidelines and staff manuals.
Possible policy 3:
Freedom of expression and press freedom are fundamental values in a democratic society.
The mission of any institution committed to preparing productive citizens must include teaching students these values, both by lesson and by example.
For these purposes, as well as to teach students responsibility by empowering them to make and defend their own decisions, school-sponsored student news media, print or online, at
[NAME OF SCHOOL] are established as designated public forums for student expression in which students make all final decisions of content.
Such news media will not be reviewed by school officials outside the adviser in his/her coaching role or restrained by school officials prior to, during, or after publication or distribution.
Therefore, material published in school-sponsored news media may not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the [NAME OF SCHOOL] District, and neither school officials nor the school are legally responsible for their content.
Students are protected by and bound to the principles of the First Amendment and other protections and limitations afforded by the U.S. Constitution and the various court decisions reaffirming those principles.
Comment: This is the same as model two but also includes a statement that student media do not intend to reflect the opinions of school authorities. Like model two, this model addresses the educational value of student media and attaches these issues to legal language. The three essential points made in earlier models appear here as well.
For any free expression policy:
Designated forum: This language (designated forum in policy or practice) should be included in policies at board or publication level because all public forums are designated either by action or inaction (unless the board clearly says otherwise). Being silent as students operate as a forum is really permitting a designated forum.
Social media post/question: Student media policy may be the most important decision you make. What should your student media policy contain?
Stance
The staff manual may include copies of the school board media policy along with publication-level media policy. Furthermore, the staff manual may provide procedures for students to address school administration in the case of a disagreement or policy issue. Students should consider including in the staff manual guidelines for proposing policy changes to the school board or petitioning the district (e.g., How does a student request to be put on the agenda for a school board meeting?).
Reasoning/Suggestions
- Obtain a copy of the school district’s media or student expression policy.
- Compare district policy to your publication-level policy and identify potential areas for misunderstanding or conflict (e.g., the district policy is more restrictive of student speech/press).
- Make a plan to advocate change in the district’s policy that would align it more closely with how the staff actually operates, and why.
- Student editors should recognize that they, not the adviser, are best suited to advocate their role. Advisers must navigate a difficult line as employee and should not be put in a position to defend student work.
- Consider advocating for a state law that would protect student free expression rights.
Resources
Lesson: Developing a Presentation for Your School Board, Journalism Education Association
The Foundation of journalism: policies, ethics and staff manuals JEA SPRC
Rethinking Your Forum Status, JEA SPRC
What Do I Do When I’m Censored?, Student Press Law Center
Model Guidelines for High School Student Media, Student Press Law Center
Model Legislation to Protect Student Free Expression Rights, Student Press Law Center
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Some censorship makes ‘no cents’
by Stan Zoller, MJE
During his first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said that “the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”
For media advisers, that fear is likely to be administrative censorship. Perhaps a bigger fear, however, is the threat of ‘economic censorship,’ where student media is threatened with a curtailment of elimination of funds based on content or performance.
It’s not a new tactic, but one that is grossly misrepresented. Threatening student media with fund reduction or elimination of funds is like over-zealous taxpayers threatening a public employee because someone “pays their salary.” My favorite retort is to ask people who use that stunt if they get to drive a police car. “Why, no” they’ll say, to which I reply, “but you pay their salary.”
I once had the dubious opportunity to engage in a similar argument with an attorney who told me school districts can censor school media because they provide the funds.
Wrong.
According to the SPLC’s Law of Student Media (third edition) in 1995, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Rosenberg v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, that “…neither school officials or those acting on their behalf can use their financial control over a student publication as a tool to dictate content or favor a particular viewpoint.”
Lower court cases have echoed the same sentiment.
[pullquote]What’s concerning, even a bit confusing, about attempts to control funding for student media is administrators generally seem to go after breaking news media, print newspapers and online editions of school media, as opposed to yearbooks. When it comes to funding for newspapers, it’s chump change compared to what schools may pay for yearbooks.[/pullquote]
What’s concerning, even a bit confusing, about attempts to control funding for student media is administrators generally seem to go after breaking news media, print newspapers and online editions of school media, as opposed to yearbooks. When it comes to funding for newspapers, it’s chump change compared to what schools may pay for yearbooks.
Depending on the frequency of publications, breaking news media can cost around $10,000 to $15,000 for a school year while yearbook cost, depending on press run and size of the book, can hit six figures.
Information obtained by the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, revealed a wide disparity in what schools pay for printing of the yearbooks. Granted, yearbooks generate some revenue, but odds are many schools subsidize production of yearbooks in some fashion.
One Chicago area school district, for example, spends $30,000 for what the district reported via the invoice as “cover applications and art” out of a reported total cost for the book of $107,580. Another school documented yearbook expenses of $93,281 in an invoice that was not itemized.
The issue? One of transparency. Imagine, if you will, if the school newspaper or student media website ran a story about district finances with reporting gaps. It is probable that administrators watch student breaking news media because of the timeliness of the reporting. Yearbooks, which archive the year, may have the advantage of avoiding the hot issue at the hot time.
The nature of the media, however, should not spur administrative threats or action. Censorship, especially economic censorship, does little more than demoralize student journalists. That’s not breaking news.
With administrators watching budgets, curtailing funding for student media is little more than a way to buy out student journalists’ First Amendment rights.
All student media should be supported in a similar manner. Using purse strings as a threat is extortion.
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