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JEA is proud to sign
Statement in Support of Freedom of the Press
“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government.” Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
As organizations committed to the First Amendment right of freedom of speech and the press, we are alarmed by the efforts of the President and his administration to demonize and marginalize the media and to undermine their ability to inform the public about official actions and policies.
Such efforts include the President’s refusal to answer questions posed by a reporter from CNN because the President asserts it promotes “fake news”; charges that the media “manipulated” images of the inauguration; false accusations that the media has covered up terrorist attacks; and repeated claims that the media is “failing” and “dishonest.” All of this recently culminated in the President calling the New York Times, CBS, CNN, ABC, and NBC News “the enemy of the American People!” and in the exclusion of representatives of various media outlets from a press briefing. In these and other examples, the President and his designees have attempted to villainize and discredit the press for any reporting he dislikes. However, the job of the press is not to please the President but to inform the public, a function that is essential to democracy.
The expressions of disdain for the press and its role in democracy by federal officials send a signal to state and local officials. In the aftermath of an election season that witnessed outright intimidation of journalists in communities around the country, there is a compelling need for highly placed federal officials to acknowledge the crucial role of a free press under our Constitution and the responsibility of government officials at all levels to respect it. In one chilling example, multiple individuals who identified themselves as journalists were arrested, detained, and charged with felonies while simply doing their job: reporting on Inauguration Day protests in Washington, D.C. Those arrests were made by local police and pursued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, both of which displayed an alarming lack of concern for fundamental constitutional rights. The fact that those charges have since been dropped suggests that the arrests were unwarranted and highlights the need for our nation’s leaders to set national policy that unequivocally supports a free and independent press and the public’s right to know.
Our Constitution enshrines the press as an independent watchdog and bulwark against tyranny and official misconduct. Its function is to monitor and report on the actions of public officials so that the public can hold them accountable. The effort to delegitimize the press undermines democracy, and officials who challenge the value of an independent press or question its legitimacy betray the country’s most cherished values and undercut one of its most significant strengths.
The First Amendment protects the right to protest, dissent, and petition government for a redress of grievances, but these rights cannot be exercised without a free press that provides information to the public. Together, these rights represent the constitutionally sanctioned method for the public to oppose government policies and activities and to seek change. The wisdom of this system can be seen in parts of the world where such a right does not exist, or is not honored, and violent opposition is the only available avenue to express opposition or remedy injustice.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms all efforts by elected and appointed officials to penalize, delegitimize, or intimidate members of the press.
March 2, 2017
Endorsed by:
Alliance for Community Media
Alliance for Media Arts + Culture
American Association of Law Libraries
American Booksellers Association
American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties of the
District of Columbia
American Copy Editors Society
American Library Association
American Society of Business
Publication Editors
American Society of Journalists and Authors
American Society of Magazine Editors
American Society of Media Photographers
American Society of News Editors
Arizona Press Club
Asian American Journalists Association
Associated Collegiate Press
Associated Press Media Editors
Associated Press Photo Managers
Association of Alternative Newsmedia
Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
Association of American University Presses
Association of Food Journalists
Association of Health Care Journalists
Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication
Association of Research Libraries
Association of Schools of Journalism
and Mass Communication
Authors Guild
Bill of Rights Defense Committee/Defending
Dissent Foundation
CCTV Center for Media & Democracy
Center for Media and Democracy
Center for Responsive Politics
Center for Scholastic Journalism
College Media Association
Colorado Press Women
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
Committee to Protect Journalists
Demand Progress
Education Writers Association
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Freedom to Read Foundation
Free Press
Free Speech Coalition
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Institute for Nonprofit News’
Investigative Reporters and Editors
Journalism and Women Symposium
Journalism Education Association
Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library
Local Independent Online News Publishers
Media Freedom Foundation
Media Law Resource Center
Military Reporters and Editors
National Association of Black Journalists
National Association of Hispanic Journalists
National Association of Science Writers
National Coalition Against Censorship
National Federation of Community Broadcasters
National Press Foundation
National Press Photographers Association
National Scholastic Press Association
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
National Writers Union
Native American Journalists Association
New England First Amendment Coalition
North American Agricultural Journalists
Online News Association
OpentheGovernment.org
PEN America
People For the American Way Foundation
Project Censored
Radio Television Digital News Association
Reporters Committee for Freedom
of the Press
Reporters Without Borders
Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics
and Law
Student Press Law Center
Sunlight Foundation
The Media Consortium
The NewsGuild-CWA
Tully Center for Free Speech
Unity: Journalists For Diversity
Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts
Washington-Baltimore News Guild
Women’s Media Center
Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Additional Endorsers:
City and Regional Magazine Association
Community of Literary Magazines and Presses
New York Financial Writers’ Association
Overseas Press Club
Small Press Distribution
The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute
Read MoreOn-site training program available
JEA is entering the second year of its partner project in partnership with the National Scholastic Press Association to deliver on-site training to journalism programs in need.
All journalism teachers and their students deserve support and training regardless of factors like location, funding and available resources. The National High School Journalism Convention offers fantastic programming for attendees, but the bottom line is that some of the teachers and students most in need are unable to attend.
The adviser outreach program is designed to help journalism teachers and their students develop sufficient skills necessary for producing student media and to connect them to a larger network in the form of a professional learning community with three veteran journalism teachers and their students.
How it works:
Teachers will apply in the spring, and those selected will undergo two introductory sessions online at a convenient spring or summer time to establish goals and develop a relationship with the trainers. During the fall training, students and teachers will benefit from direct instruction, hands-on practice and personal guidance from all three teacher-trainers. The focus will be reporting/writing, law and ethics, visual presentation and leadership. As part of the training, each school will set up a news website.
During the same week as the customized training, participants will be part of a free Saturday workshop at their school hosted by JEA/NSPA and open to all scholastic media programs within driving distance. In addition to breakout sessions, the workshop will include activities designed to form or strengthen local connections and professional learning communities.
After the classroom training and Saturday workshop, participants will collaborate as part of an ongoing professional learning community with the teacher-trainers and their students for the rest of the school year and for one year afterward in order to continue the adviser support, measure progress and provide ongoing feedback.
How to apply:
The online application process has two separate forms, one for the teacher and one for the principal. Both are due by April 1. (Candidates will receive a link to the principal form after submitting their initial application.) Click here for answers to frequently asked questions.
Read MoreTwo items worth checking out
for your journalism program
These two items might provide a needed spark to add to your reporting or provide a way to give freedom to programs in your state.
A guide to help with protest reporting
Looking for suggestions for your students or for others when they cover public events or protests?
Check out Getting into good trouble: A Citizen journalist’s guide to covering dissent for advice and discussion. Beatrice Motamedi, Director of Global Student Square, looks for feedback as the group will update its materials.
Passing state legislation? This video might help with ideas
From Kathy Schrier:
Enemy of the American people?
Scholastic Journalism Week gives students a chance to prove the opposite
by Stan Zoller, MJE
This week is Scholastic Journalism Week – a time for scholastic journalists and their advisers and teachers to tout the excitement and passion that is, in many ways, uniquely scholastic journalism.
There will be posters, T-shirts, activities and, of course, voluminous numbers of social media posts.
This year, however, there’s something else that needs to be added to the mix.
A sense of urgency.
Never before in American history, or the history of American journalism, has the media and the First Amendment come under such ridicule and hatred by a sitting president. Instead of being dubbed “watchdogs” who protect the public’s right to know, mainstream journalists have been labeled “the enemy of the American People.”
By a sitting president.
Evita Peron would be proud. So would Hitler. So would Stalin.
In January 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Edward Carrington that “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right, and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
Jefferson made this comment two years before the First Amendment was submitted for ratification and more than four years before it was ratified, that coming in December of 1791.
While Jefferson took exception to the media, as many people do, he at least seemed to realize the importance of a free press and how it, like individual Americans, have a right to their opinion.
[pullquote]Jefferson got it; Even though, historians claim, he had one thing in common with Donald Trump – a fundamental distrust of the Fourth Estate, reportedly saying in June of 1807 that “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” In the end, however, Jefferson knew the importance of a viable media.[/pullquote]
Jefferson got it; Even though, historians claim, he had one thing in common with Donald Trump – a fundamental distrust of the Fourth Estate, reportedly saying in June of 1807 that “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.”
In the end, however, Jefferson knew the importance of a viable media.
The theme of Scholastic Journalism Week, “The Communities We Cover,” reflects the need for a free and vibrant press. Student journalists, like any other journalists, need to be free to report on anything within their community – whether it is their school, school district or hometown –without fear of censorship, restraint or undue lambasting of their efforts by officials.
Journalists are not perfect. Neither are school administrators, educators or politicians. The reality is, however, that the work done by journalists is an open book for anyone to see, especially in the age of social media. Mainstream journalists are trained in press ethics and laws and have the tools to fact check in order to verify their work. Again, it’s not always perfect.
The First Amendment clearly states that there shall be no laws “…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”, yet messages coming out of Washington, D.C. seem to be taking a counter-step to the that sentiment.
While there are cries to take the plight to social media with various hashtags, the fight against the assault on the nation’s media needs to go further. Student journalists need to take charge of informing their news consumers that journalists, including those in student media, are not “the enemy of the American People.”
During Scholastic Journalism Week scholastic media outlets should encourage their audiences to become civically engaged and contact lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to let them know that an assault on the First Amendment is not only an attack on professional journalists, but the nation’s students as well.
This year it’s important to not just celebrate Scholastic Journalism Week. Student journalists need to take pride in what they do and practice the craft that they and their advisers are so passionate about.
It’s that important. In fact, it’s urgent.
Read MoreHow do we assist teachers about
understanding the First Amendment?
The Knight Foundation’s recently released 2016 study of student and teacher beliefs, Future of the First Amendment, reported teacher responses that raise First Amendment concerns.
Teacher results showed:
• When asked if high school students should be allowed to report on controversial issues in their student newspapers without the approval of school authorities, 66 percent of students strongly or mildly agreed. Teachers had a 61 percent disapproval rate.
• When asked whether students should be allowed to express their opinions about teachers and school administrators on Facebook or other social media without worrying about being punished by teachers or school administrators for what they say, 33 percent of teachers strongly or mildly agreed while 54 percent of students did.
• When asked whether schools should be allowed to discipline students who post material on social media outside of school that school officials say is offensive, 28 percent of students strongly or mildly agree while 52 percent of teachers did.
To get a better idea of how journalism education organizations can react to these findings, we would appreciate your thoughts:
• How can journalism teachers reach out to their peers who don’t understand journalistic freedoms or the importance of those freedoms?
• How can journalism teachers reach out to their non-journalism peers who don’t support journalistic freedoms for scholastic media about the importance of those freedoms?
• What types of materials should JEA develop to assist these teachers?
• How can journalism teachers and media advisers support other journalism teachers who face prior review and restraint of student media (especially those who do not or cannot attend JEA conventions)?
• How can journalism teachers and media advisers support other journalism teachers who don’t support freedom of expression for scholastic media (especially those who do not or cannot attend JEA conventions)?
• What additional resources or materials should JEA develop to support journalism and non-journalism teachers (especially those who do not or cannot attend JEA conventions)?
• Other comments or suggestions?
Please use the comment section below or contact SPRC current director John Bowen or committee member Lori Keekley with your thoughts.
The Knight Foundation survey, compiled by Kenneth Dautrich of the Stats Group, polled 11,998 high students and 726 teachers. It is the sixth Knight FoundationFuture of the First Amendment since 2004. Past results can be found here.
Read More