Social media that works
in high school newsrooms QT33
Social media has had such a profound effect on journalism that it’s sometimes hard to remember how traditional news functioned before it. Reading this 2009 MediaShift article is a powerful reminder that Twitter wasn’t always the source of breaking news. In fact, as author Julie Posetti wrote just eight years ago, “Some employers are either so afraid of the platform or so disdainful about its journalistic potential that they’ve tried to bar their reporters from even accessing Twitter in the workplace.”
Not accessing Twitter in the newsroom? It’s laughable now. Yet for some high school newsrooms, this is still the case. Overzealous school policies banning the use of various forms of social media and cell phones at school cripple student journalists who need to learn these tools in order to survive and thrive in our new media world.
However, setting students loose with social media journalism without strong guidelines is just as problematic. Just as professional news producers such as NPR have developed thorough social media policies, advisers should work with their student edition board to develop a robust social media policy for their own publications.
A place to start when tackling this task is to look to professional models like NPR’s. This recap of a 2014 panel about the ethics of social media news is another good resource. For scholastic guidance, check out JEA/SPRC’s foundation materials or this 2012 Social Media Toolbox masters project — though a bit dated, it still contains some great lessons and ideas. For help convincing administration of the value of social media in the newsroom, Quill & Scroll’s Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism has a strong rationale and additional resources.
As you develop your guidelines, however, it’s important to consider both sides of social media journalism: not only how to use it as a tool to share information or report a breaking story, but also how to use it as a reporter seeking information — the importance of verification so not to spread misinformation. For this second part of the equation, the Columbia Journalism Review’s “Best Practices for Social Media Verification” and the Online News Association’s Social Newsgathering Ethics Code are good places to start.
Our student journalists deserve to use the same tools as the professionals, but they also need the same caliber of ethics and responsible practices to guide them. These guidelines must be specific, yet flexible, as social media platforms are constantly evolving. With guidance for how to post to social media as a journalist and how to use it as a reporting tool, students will be uniquely poised to take new media journalism to places we can’t yet even imagine.
Guideline:
Journalists should hold to the same ethical standards and guidelines for their use of social media as they do for print or broadcast. Editors should devise a social media guide with clear expectations and make sure all staff members are trained in the procedures before providing username and password information for shared social media accounts.
Social Media Post:
How can students use social media effectively in high school newsrooms?
Reasoning/suggestions:
Social media has become a critical part of commercial journalism: adult reporters use social media both as a reporting tool and as a news source. Student reporters should also use social media to distribute and research news, but they — like adults — need clear guidelines for its use.
Student journalists should hold their social media posts to the same standards as print, digital or broadcast news. Examining commercial social media policies and these JEA/SPRC guidelines will provide a foundation for editors to develop their own publication policy. Student reporters also need strategies for verifying information gathered from social media posts. The Columbia Journalism Review’s “Best Practices for Social Media Verification” includes tips from experts to help students use these sources.
Resources:
JEA/SPRC Social Media Use, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
NPR ethics handbook: social media, NPR
SXSWi 2014: Accurate, Fair & Safe: The Ethics of Social News, Storify
Social media toolbox, Hendrix Project
The value of using social media in journalism, Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism
Best practices for social media verification, Columbia Journalism Review
ONA Social Newsgathering Ethics Code, Online News Association
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Responsibility in scholastic media starts with
ethics, accuracy, complete story QT23
Administrators may want student media that depicts the school in a positive light, that promotes good news and overlooks the negative.
Is this responsible journalism?
Advisers may want student media that reflects students’ technical proficiency such as mechanics, grammar and style. Little else matters.
Is this responsible journalism?
Students may want to preserve tradition, give students the content they want, focusing on predictable content sure to avoid administrative displeasure.
Is this responsible journalism?
The goal of responsible, ethical journalism is not met by simply deciding stories cannot be published or media practices that produce no educational value. Journalistic responsibility is a layered, textured process.
Resolution of content issues will not come from a series of “don’ts” framed for the students.
Resolution will come through thorough, accurate and credible journalism shaped by a strong mission statement, empowering policies and a staff manual rooted in ethical guidelines that enable student growth, critical thinking and decision-making.
Resolution is not created by publishing fake news forged by censorship and fear of censorship.
Strong journalism is rooted in ethics, empowered by trust and enabled by policies and guidelines that demand responsibility.
Journalistic responsibility.
Quick Tips: Journalistic responsibility
Question: What we speak of responsible journalism, what do we mean?
Key points/action: Responsible journalism is ethical journalism. Administrators demand responsibility but the trouble is groups define it differently.
Responsible and ethical journalism is accurate, complete and cohesive. It’s credible and has integrity.
These elements combined create a path to ethical journalism. The path is much more difficult, if not impossible, censorship, prior review or self-censorship because students are intimidated from carrying out responsible journalism, exist
Journalism that is censored, incomplete and lacks context is not responsible. It’s fake news.
Stance: Journalistic responsibility begins with empowering student media to practice the little things:
- Access to accurate, complete and truthful information
- Ability to present information in context
- Access to credible and trustworthy sources through interviewing, observation and research
- Leadership through their content, decisions and actions
- Opportunities to decide all content for student media, to apply the principles, skills and practices they are taught and learn from their successes
As student journalists take these steps, they will maintain the idea of free expression as democracy’s cornerstone,
Reasoning/suggestions:
Common threads of responsible journalism connect school officials, student journalists and news-media professionals. Guidelines expressed here reflect the belief student journalists and school officials share a commitment to the schools’ educational mission and practices, and that commitment focuses on building stronger and engaged citizens.
Responsible student journalists accept ethical guidelines and practices to best serve their communities. Responsible administrators embrace and enhance journalistic practices that carry out the mission of scholastic media and of the school in fortifying information their communities need to make informed decisions and action in a working democracy.
To that end, we build goals for journalistic responsibility by:
- Establishing policies and practices that enable thorough, accurate, complete and cohesive reporting of student-decided content.
- Applying critical thinking and decision-making skills and practices to assist students as they become productive citizens in a democracy.
- Empowering advisers’ development and use of substantive journalism curricula and application experiences.
- Maintaining open lines of communication between students, faculty and staff, administrators and communities designed to build trust create a maximum environment for truthful and complete sharing of information.
- Reporting accurately, thoroughly, credibly and cohesively so process and product model integrity.
- Operating student media that publish information in verbal and visual context that enhances comprehension for the greater good of all communities.
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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Allowing sources to preview content
is ethically questionable QT12
The newest reporter on staff chooses to cover the story about the Science Department’s new policy on studying animal life. To do so, she must interview the head about a new policy on studying animal life. It’s fairly controversial because People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is strongly opposed to dissection and the new curriculum for advanced biology includes that.
What to do if sources, including the expert, want to see the story ahead of time?
Showing media content to sources is really just another form of prior review — but one with some hidden challenges. Sometimes the source can make it sound like its his or her understood right to review, and an untrained reporter might just agree. Also, the adult often believes the student might “get it wrong” and publish misinformation that could create problems. However, both students and sources should build trust in the reporting process by demonstrating integrity in their information-gathering and fact-checking processes.
Guideline:
Sources do not have the right to review materials prior to publication. Allowing sources to preview content at any stage of production raises serious ethical and journalistic practice questions.
Stance:
Showing media content to sources is a topic that may come up unexpectedly. Often a school administrator, teacher or other “adult of power” makes the request, and student reporters are unsure if they can — or should — refuse. This creates confusion and misunderstanding.
Students should not show content to sources because it is another form of prior review with ethical and journalistic challenges. They should be aware such requests are possible and know what to do if they happen.
Reasoning/suggestions:
Showing media content to sources is really just another form of prior review — but one with some hidden challenges. Sometimes the source can make it sound like its his or her understood right to review, and an untrained reporter might just agree. Also, the adult often believes the student might “get it wrong” and publish misinformation that could create problems. However, both students and sources should build trust in the reporting process by demonstrating integrity in their information-gathering and fact-checking processes.
Students may opt to verify quotes by reading them back to sources. If sources indicate quotes are inaccurate, students should check their notes and act accordingly. This should not include changing the original quotes because sources want to revise their statements.
Another unintended consequence of seeing the entire story: If sources see others’ quotes or information in the story, they have an opportunity to refute them before anything is published, giving one source an advantage over the other.
Resources:
“Show and print,” American Journalism Review
“Ethical Case Study: A lesson on the rules of prior approval of quotes, content”
The Essentials of Sourcing, Reuters
Writing and Reporting the News, Carole Rich
Sharing Stories With Sources Before Publication Is Risky, But Can Improve Accuracy, Steve Buttry
Lesson: Crafting the Argument, Journalism Education Association
Lesson: A Lesson on the Rules of Prior Approval of Quotes, Content, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
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Fake or Fact? seminar available
via live-streaming, archived video
Looking for additional materials for Constitution Day and lessons about fake news in addition to what’s available from JEA and the SPRC?
The 13th annual Poynter-Kent State University Media Ethics Workshop is Thursday, Sept. 21, and focuses on fake news. The theme is “Fake or Fact?”
Details about the workshop, including speaker bios and a tentative schedule, are here.
A lesson plan for scholastic students, created by Candace Bowen, is available on the site.
The event is on the record, live streamed and archived. Show your students panel discussions as the happen or return to them by accessing the archives.
The keynote speaker will be NPR’s David Folkenflik, NPR media correspondent who is now featured in Netflix’s documentary “Nobody Speak.”
Other sessions will address fake news and journalism credibility, fake news and the 2016 election, how to identify and combat fake news, and fake news and public relations. Kelly McBride, Poynter’s VP, will be present, along with Indira Lakshmanan, who is Poynter’s new ethics chair.
You may recognize Indira as the Boston Globe’s Washington columnist who is frequently on PBS’s Washington Week and other political news shows.
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Should student media publish
senior superlatives? QT9
Publishing senior superlatives, if seniors decide they are worthwhile at all, is one of those “traditions” best moved from student media to those who most clearly benefit – the senior class.
Face it, publishing senior superlatives is akin to publishing fake news. They are not newsworthy, not in line with most student media mission statements and not factually based. It can also be argued they take precious funding from other more journalistically responsible topics.
That said, if students really feel they serve a legitimate or traditional purpose, move them totally to the legal, ethical and financial responsibility of senior class officers, including printing or distribution.
We recommend student editorial boards begin work with senior class officials to shift the legal, ethical and financial responsibility to those affected. Once those students and their adults see the difficulties of publishing senior superlatives, only time will tell their future.
Guideline
Publishing senior superlatives, if seniors decide they are worthwhile at all, is one of those “traditions” best moved from student media to those who most clearly benefit – the senior class.
Question: Should student media publish senior superlatives?
Key points/action:
Face it, publishing senior superlatives is akin to publishing fake news. They are not newsworthy, not in line with most student media mission statements and not factually based. It can also be argued they take precious funding from other more journalistically responsible topics.
That said, if students really feel they serve a legitimate or traditional purpose, move them totally to the legal, ethical and financial responsibility of senior class officers, including printing or distribution.
Stance:
Senior superlatives should not take away space, time or finances from responsible journalism. Shift the energy it takes to come up with them to those who benefit most, the senior class.
Reasoning/suggestions:
Students, and sometimes school officials, sometimes forget their main mission of publishing: informing their communities of real news that affect them. Senior superlatives achieve none of those standards.
We recommend student editorial boards begin checking with senior class officials to shift the legal, ethical and financial responsibility to those affected. Once those students and their adults see the difficulties of publishing senior superlatives, only time will tell their future.
Bottom line: student media should stay away from fake news and focus on real stories.
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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