A new way to look at a new year
Let’s start the new year with with some positive thoughts. A model of sorts should your and your students ever face the prospect of prior review or censorship. Some advice to heed from students who faced it.
And won.
In this series of blogs, we will outline concepts other student journalists and advisers can consider if they, too, face such a fight.
Henry Rome, JEA’s 2009 High School Journalist of the Year, and Seth Zweifler, current EIC of the Spoke of Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania fought back last year when administrators threatened prior review because of articles the staff had published during the year. Their fight can be documented on the students’ site, in Stoganews.com coverage and through the SPLC.
What helped them fight through this, Rome said, was knowing they were right and working with others who supported them, and looking to the future.
“In the end,” Rome said, “the younger reporters and editors I have gotten to know so well deserve the same opportunities I’ve had to write and report. That is simply the bottom line. Student journalists deserve to be able to spend months upon months investigating stories and controversial issues. Student journalists deserve to learn how to manage a large group of people toward a common goal. Student journalists deserve the opportunity to serve their school. Indeed, they deserve the opportunity to serve their democracy.”
One thing Rome stressed was that the community reminded them of a fundamental point: The community deserves to be informed and censorship or review would compromise that information.
“The Spoke is not a public relations tool of the school district, and the community has a tremendous respect for our role in tackling difficult issues,” Rome said. “In the end, we realized that we were not just fighting to allow future staffs to write and report. We were fighting for the right of the community to be informed. And it is only through an informed populous that you can have a true democracy.”
To help maintain this flow of information and to keep your efforts in fighting for press freedom, Rome stressed the importance of the Web site, but also the following:
• First, know why you are fighting. Talk with your parents, friends in government. Alumni of the staff and of the school.
• Understand the fight will be long and draining. Team with others who know why the fight is important. The Student Press Law Center. Area press and/or university officials.
• Know this is a fight you simply have to wage.
• Fight to report the truth of events in your media.
• Know your stuff before you go face-to-face with the district or the media. Be prepared. Anticipate responses.
“Get as much input as you can,” Rome said, “and you’ll find that folks, whether they have a background in student journalism or not, strongly and passionately understand its value in society.”
Rome said before they began talking with district officials students armed themselves with the facts. Because they had reported on and investigated real issues in a professional way, they recognized the critical importance how to stand up for their rights.
“Just like in a news story, you’re nowhere without your facts,” Rome said. “I think that’s something special about journalists that enabled us to wage our campaign.
Just as flowery or sensational language doesn’t make a good article, it won’t make a good argument either. Know your facts and make forceful and reasoned arguments.”
Where a traditional fight against censorship isn’t working, Rome said, fight for your paper and for your community.
“Fight for this year, fight for next,” Rome said. “Fight for all those younger students excited about joining the paper. Fight for every student and parent in the district who deserve to be informed.”
Rome said that kept him going when things got tough was one from Ambrose Redmoon: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
“We feel like we did what we had to do,” Rome said, “what we thought was right. And that’s all that you can do.”
Next: More on setting up the fight and why it is not the adviser’s fight.
Read MoreTime for a holiday gift?
Dennis Byrne is clipping folks again in his Barbershop at ChicagoNow. Here is a link to his latest comments on Hazlewood and Stevenson High.
Anyone wanting to give Byrne an intelligent discussion on the impact of Hazelwood as a Christmas gift please do.
Maybe we can open his eyes – and his mind – to other points of view.
Read MoreWhat would you want in terms of a protocol?
In the ongoing saga that is the battle over Stevenson High (IL) journalism program, The Daily Herald recently editorially called for an intervention session. An IEP of sorts to plan protocols to heal the damaged relationship between school and students.
The online Merriam-Webster definition of a protocol: a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence or a set of conventions governing the treatment of data in an online communications system. I like process instead, but the definition is not the key.
Its substance is.
Such a protocol is, and has been, the goal of Illinois Journalism Education Association (JEA) state director Randy Swikle, the McCormick Freedom Project and the Illinois Press Foundation. In fact, a conference to attempt such protocols is planned for February.
Assuming the conference can succeed at what many, many others have tried (and we do want it to succeed for all journalism programs facing censorship) what would you see as the core items in a protocol? If you and your students face censorship or prior review, what is the key concept or principle or action you think ought to be at the heart of a workable protocol? If you are review free, what is the core of that freedom others need to know about?
For me, such a protocol would have to answer key questions:
• How do we commonly define responsibility, as in free and responsible journalism?
• Whether we can reach an understanding on prior review and why it has no valid educational purpose
• Can we convince all involved that journalistic values match and precisely serve the best of a system’s educational mission statements?
• The words civility or respect are often bandied about. Can all sides really respect each other’s positions?
We would love to hear from you and how you envision a protocol that enables all parties to work out a sound educational solution.
Read MoreTimber!
Building off of John’s previous post, tattoos continue to be the scourge of Wentzville, Mo.
Yesterday, after receiving approval from principal and The Wolf’s Howl had been distributed during fifth hour, administrators of the Wentzville School District pulled the paper from circulation.
The offending item this time was again, a tattoo. On a spread about cancer – sorry for the lack of details – there was evidently a photo of a cancer patient who had a small tattoo.The horror … the horror.
It appears that the administrators in Wentzville are attempting to give their counterparts at Stevenson High School a run for their money in the most ridiculous reason to censor a paper contest.
These two schools continue to distinguish themselves in ways that are unfortunately getting a lot of recognition. Stevenson, as it was pointed out by JEA president Jack Kennedy in a letter to the Stevenson administrators, is a nationally recognized model school. Unfortunately in these cases, Stevenson is becoming the model of what not to do when it comes to supporting students, the First Amendment or the educational process. Let’s hope that other administrators and school districts are not paying attention to what these districts are doing, because it could be the start of a very small snowball that is rolling down the hill … its momentum needs to be stopped before this becomes a much bigger problem.
Read MoreStevenson board claims Statesman not a public forum; the censorship beat continues
According to Lincolnshire, Il, Board of Education president Bruce Lubin at a board of education meeting Dec. 17, the Statesman, a focal point of censorship issues over the last two years, is not a public forum but rather “an educational and curriculum endeavor.”
The whole statement can be found at Stevenson High’s Web site.
The board clams “informal” review has taken place for years in the statement. The statement also cited Hazelwood as rationale for the board to “impose restrictions on a newspaper of this type, provided that their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.”
Stevenson officials today censored another story, this one on student use of prescription drugs and using named sources. The school cited its responsibility not to publish private student information even though the student had given reporters permission to use the name.
Still, the board’s statement sees only positives over the controversy.
“The current questions surrounding the Statesman have had at least one positive result,” the board statement continued. “While Stevenson has had an informal practice of pre-publication prior review for the Statesman for years, recent events have enabled the administration, faculty, and student journalists to have conversations that have provided more focus and are leading to the development of more specific procedures and practices for providing feedback and suggestions to our journalism students. Within the next month, our administration, journalism teachers, and students will be working collaboratively to draft clear procedures and guidelines to improve communication and provide our students with clear expectations for their work in the journalism program.”
Student editors have repeatedly said said they are being forced away from responsible journalism and learning.
According to the Chicago BreakingNewsCenter, editor Pam Selman said at last night’s meeting, “The worst part about it all is that (the censorship) is not just unlawful — it’s bad teaching and bad journalism. The fact that we are students does not deprive us of our rights as journalists working on a limited public forum to be free from unreasonable restraint.”
The board now argues the Statesman is not a public forum.
At any rate, the board’s statement continues the puzzle that is Stevenson High. The board reiterates its belief it is an exemplary learning community. Journalism students, meanwhile, only learn more about restraint and review even though their course description presents the following:
Journalism: Newspaper Production (Accelerated )
ENG951-Semester 1, ENG952-Semester 2
Open to 10-11-12 Full Year
Prerequisite: Journalistic Writing
Students do all the work necessary to produce the school newspaper, the Statesman. Staff positions include managing editors, copy editor, design editor, advertising manager, photo manager, page editors (news, opinions, sports, in-depth and feature), reporter and photographer. Staff members gather news, research and write copy, and help complete pages. Students who hope to be photographers are encouraged to take a photography course through the Art Department. Because this is a student publication, all responsibilities, from the planning of the content to the design of an issue to the processing of photos and the completion of pages, are handled by students. Afterschool work is necessary to the completion of each issue. This course may be taken more than once for credit. While students are welcome to enroll if they meet the prerequisite, they must complete the interview and application process in the spring to be considered for admission.
Collaboration, so far, seems very one-sided and directive.
And, as seen in this college editor’s column, Stevenson is not the only school changing the playing field. Additionally, censorship continues at Timberland High in Wentzville, Missouri.
For additional stories, see the Chicago BreakingNewsCenter story. Read the Daily Herald story.
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