SPJ condemns Wentzville prior review, censorship
The Society of Professional Journalists this week termed disruptive the Wentzville Board of Education’s use of prior review, censorship and the resulting resignation of a trained adviser.
The letter urged administrators to end prior review of student media.
The comments were part of a letter from SPJ dated March 25 and addressed to board members and administrators. Information about the letter was posted by the SPLC on its blog.
The letter referred to prior review and censorship resulting from articles and photos about tattoos and other newspaper and yearbook content.
“Continuing these restrictions will only cause further damage to a once well-respected student publication,” wrote SPJ President Kevin Smith, “and it will send the message to students that governmental control of the news media is valued over a free press.”
Read MoreWentzville BOE meeting update
Bedecked in their green Team McCandless shirts, a group of 50 or students, parents and family members gathered at the monthly meeting of the Wentzville Board of Education, hoping to have their voices heard over the censorship of the newspaper and yearbook at Timberland High School.
Those green shirts failed to bring any luck to Team McCandless supporters, as four supporters of Principal Winston Rogers were allowed to speak before the public comments portion of the evening was brought to a close. As the disgruntled group filed out, several remarks were shouted back toward the boardroom and the group gathered outside the boardroom. Eventually, the group was allowed one person to speak.
The assembled group chose Nikki McGee, the editor-in-chief of the Wolf’s Howl. McGee spoke eloquently of her experiences in Cathy McCandless’ room and of the effects McCandless’ teaching has had on her over the course of four years. After that, the group headed back out and began to disperse.
Members of the St. Louis media were there, with KSDK and KMOV both sending reporters. A reporter from the Post-Dispatch was there as well. None of those media had posted anything online as of this writing.
The general atmosphere of those assembled was one of anger and disgruntlement. Those assembled were hopeful that they were going to be given a chance to speak and when it became apparent they were not, that anger rose. Several parents spoke of the censorship at THS being extended to the board meeting. Several vowed to be back for next month’s board meeting as well.
What I took away from this is a couple of things. First, that it’s good these students have stood up for themselves. Would that there were more students around the country like this, we’d hopefully have a lot less of a problem with censorship. Two, that it’s going to take a lot to overcome administrators in situations like this. It’s not enough to be in the right side of the argument. When we’re fighting against this, it takes time and hard work and persistence and passion and dedication.
I’ll be posting some photos one of my students took at the board meeting this evening to my Facebook account sometime tomorrow and provide some final thoughts.
Read MoreTeam McCandless
Wentzville Board Meeting
So over the past six months or so, the students and teacher at Timberland High School in Wentzville, Mo. have undergone some terrible tribulations at the hands of their administrators. Stories pulled in multiple issues, oversight of the yearbook, panel photos pulled from said yearbook in March, when there is little that can be done to change them in the book. The list of transgressions has been well publicized.
And that last sentence is the silver lining in this awful cloud of censorship. The students and parents of adviser Cathy McCandless have responded admirably and forcefully to this situation.
At last check, their Facebook group, Team McCandless, has 585 members. A Wentzville parent has also created a blog – www.stop-ths-censorship.blogspot.com – that catalogs much of the grievances of parents and publication students as well as encouraging people to action.
In meetings with administration, yearbook students are starting to see some victories in their discussions with the administrators.
And perhaps most important, they are taking their arguments where they can have impact: the board of education. This Thursday, a group of parents, students, alumni and teachers will be attending the Wentzville Board of Education – me included – in order to let the decision makers know their thoughts about what has transpired. I’m hoping to have thoughts on this site that evening, as well as perhaps some photos. One of the members of the Student Partners, Ted Noelker, will also be attending this event.
While I know this has been a terribly trying, taxing time for Cathy, it has to be heart warming to know she’s done a good job teaching her students about their rights as student journalists and, in turn, her students have taught their parents enough about their rights to, hopefully, do something about it.
After talking with Cathy, I know she’s somewhat hopeful the tide may turn back towards her students favor. Hopefully, a big showing on Thursday will help sway the board of education and district administrators to see reason.
Read MoreJust this once
In the 1970s, the American Library Association released a film for use in schools called The Speaker. The film dealt with multi-level decision making concerning free speech.
One line sticks in my mind: Just this once.
As in “what’s wrong if just this once we stop someone from speaking.”
Over the years, this translated into the realm of prior review: so what if just this once the principal prior reviews student media. Who is harmed? What is lost? How will it hurt? Who will care?
And, after all this time, journalism advisers and teachers do not have an common answer for the issues surrounding prior review.
For some, prior review gets teachers off the hook. It is a safety cushion where someone else takes the responsibility for decisions made.
For some, tolerating it or embracing it means a job. In this economy one almost cannot blame them.
For some, prior review means following commercial media when the publisher sometimes can say yay or nay to content.
For these and other reasons the scholastic journalism community has, for far too long, been unwilling to really confront this elephant in the room of journalistic learning.
Now, though, we are seeing more and more fruits of allowing just this once as it applies to prior review:
• Solid programs with solid advisers are falling to the spread of prior review. The latest is in Minnesota.
• Prior restraint, not a safer school or real educational growth, is the product of prior review.
• Administrators are starting to ask for proof that schools exist without prior review. Why? Because they just don’t believe schools exist with review since that is what administrative consulting groups and school lawyers tell them. The latest instance of this comes from Colorado.
• Several administrative consulting groups across the nation, even though they don’t say they do, endorse in open or subtle ways administrative control of student media. Prior review. For self-protection. Because it is the safe thing to do.
Because the spread of prior review by those outside the staffs of student media is so extensive, so pervasive, we as journalism educators must do more than condemn this issue. We must raise challenges that ask:
• What are workable alternatives to prior review? And then create and distribute them.
• How do we show the practice has no educational value and in fact harms student educational growth? And model our beliefs.
• How do we show that truthful, accurate and complete reporting by student media cannot take place in an atmosphere of prior review? And showcase the solid programs where such reporting thrives.
• Does the risk of just this once dropping prior review outweigh administrative fears of students running amuck? And publicize the excellence of students, who without prior review consistently show their learning works.
Our goals should thus include:
• Clear demonstration, through the use of nationwide examples, that free and responsible student media means student decision making without prior review. Not responsible to mother school but to the idea of truth and serving the school’s various publics.
• Clear documentation that schools do prosper without prior review and that their numbers are substantial. We need to let each other know when our programs are public forums by policy or practice, and we need to do so proudly so those numbers make on impact on those who claim otherwise.
• Clear modeling to administrators that their best way to monitor student media is to hire qualified and caring advisers and teachers who empower students to grow by practicing what they are taught.
It is time to actively implement our beliefs, to remind those who support prior review they are wrong.
Just this once – before it is too late.
Read MoreKnow who you’re gonna call…
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The Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s “panic button,” an interactive map of JEA officials and those willing to answer questions is now available for your use. You can access the map by clicking on the link in the menu bar above or through the link earlier in this paragraph.
The map is part of JEA’s Adviser Assistance Program. Press rights commission members designed it as a first-level of support for students, advisers and administrators having questions about all areas of scholastic journalism but mainly issues surrounding scholastic press freedoms and responsibilities.
We hope it will add to a positive Scholastic Journalism Week experience. Many thanks to Kent State University journalism GA Stacy Stevenson for implementing the map.
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