More end of the year madness
Even though schools teach the First Amendment, allowing students to practice it seems to be another matter entirely.
Add this Chicago tribune article to your reading list. Thanks to the SPLC blog and Susan Tantillo for the heads-up.
Read MoreMeet the Press Rights student partners
Thanks to JEA member Bryan Farley, you can see the kick-off of the Scholastic Press Rights Commission Student Partners project. His blog, “More Than Kids: Understanding People Through Photography,” includes links to photos of the group’s booth at the Portland convention.
Three of the high school students able to attend the convention were Ted Noelker (Central Focus, managing editor of multimedia) of Francis Howell Central High School, St. Charles, Mo.; Zoe Newcomb (The Broadview, news editor) of Convent of the Sacred Heart High School, San Francisco; and Meghan Morris (The Spoke, assistant managing editor) of Conestoga High School, Berwyn, Pa.
These three spent time at the booth, talking to other students and letting them know about their 45words initiative, which is designed to support their peers when it comes to First Amendment issues. They also promoted their Editor’s Emergency Toolkit.
Other student partners are Morgan Brewster (The Mustang Express, multimedia editor) of Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Ariz.; Christopher Kim (The Tiger Times and Kaleidoscope, copy editor) of Seoul International School, Seoul, Korea; Zachary Knudson (The Crier, managing editor) from St. Francis (Minn.) High School; Sara Rogers (The Hi-Lite, cover story editor) from Carmel (Ind.) High School; and Joseph Weber (The Kirkwood Call, features writer) Kirkwood (Mo.) High School.
Already members of the group have reached out to students at schools facing censorship and prior review situations, offering support and suggestions. They plan to host a booth at the JEA/NSPA Kansas City convention in November. In the meantime, follow them on Twitter or Facebook.
Also enjoy Farley’s blog post about the First Amendment. I don’t know how he does it, but he does. (And you’ll have to read the blog to understand what that means….)
My first SJW has been amazing!
I’m ashamed to admit this is the first Scholastic Journalism Week I’ve ever participated in during my five years of teaching, but what an experience it has been so far … and one I will be repeating annually until I retire.
I don’t say that because I’ve had some sort of life-altering experience or even one big thing that has changed the way I look at my job or the First Amendment or scholastic journalism.
Instead, it’s been a bit of a slow steady trickle of little things. Monday I asked my students to just fill out a little sheet about why they love newspaper or yearbook. And while I did learn who was just as sarcastic as I am, I also learned some really nice things about why students love scholastic journalism.
Tuesday was a work night for my newspaper staff. I had students who were there from 2:20 until 9 p.m. on a day when the paper wasn’t going to bed the next day. I spoke to an AP history class about the importance of journalism and journalists being free of bias and the general state of the media. A nice little discussion that popped up out of the blue.
Wednesday was a nice day of little triumphs as well. The Student Partners – follow them on Facebook or at twitter.com/45words – are starting to really get some stuff done. My newspaper staff made the decision to jump a 2,000 word profile on a wrestling champion from our newspaper to our website, an interesting decision in our new little world of scholastic journalism. The yearbook and newspaper kids started Facebook fan and friend drives to increase the reach of their groups. I personally was able to contribute eight new people to our drive in about the span of three minutes. Students on each staff sent thank you notes to the people they interact with most in the course of your duties – and I got great feedback from those people through e-mails. And finally, a photojournalism student told me I was her favorite teacher … in front of another one of her teachers. Nice!
And that was just me. Karen Barrett, up in Wheeling, Ill., told us Wednesday of the great things her students did to help keep one of her introductory classes. Sarah Nichols tweeted some photos of her staff participating in Chad Rummel’s Bring It Day that he shared on the listserv – I’m using it too, my editors love it! – and Aaron Manfull posted some interesting numbers on jeadigitalmedia.org about web traffic from scholastic news websites from around the country. I’m still trying to figure out what those numbers mean to my newspaper staff, but they are a nice instrument to have and enable us to kind of compare what we are doing on the web. Carrie Faust put the smack down on some ignorant folks out in Ventura, Calif. in the comments section of a story about some parents who were attacking the student journalists who conducted a survey about sex in their high school.
I’m positive I’ve missed some great things that you all, my colleagues, have experienced this week. Share what you’ve been for SJW in the comments section of this post. They don’t have to be huge deals, it’s those little victories that keep us going.
Read MoreWe want you to celebrate a few good forums
Since it’s Scholastic Journalism Week, let’s do some celebrating.
In the past, we have sought student media which are not forums for student expression.
Let’s try a positive statement: We want recognize student media that are forums for student expression, either by policy or practice.
Forums for student expression are thus defined:
• Forums by policy: An official school policy exists that designates student editors as the ultimate authority regarding content. School officials actually practice this policy by exercising a “hands-off” role and empowering student editors to lead. Advisers teach and offer students advice, but they neither control nor make final decisions regarding content.
• Forums by practice: A school policy may or may not exist regarding student media, but administrators have a “hands-off” approach and have empowered students to control content decisions. Advisers teach and offer students advice, but they neither control nor make final decisions regarding content.
To make it easy to compile the needed information, let us know your status as a forum for student expression by leaving a comment below or leaving a note on the commission’s Facebook page.
Join us in celebrating a key part of Scholastic Journalism Week: acknowledging those who practice the most important 45 words of our democracy.
Read MorePeople and issues in a world of journalism
After spending four days at the Poynter Institute In St. Petersburg, Florida, I have a number of journalism issues on my mind:
• AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division’s vice head David Bulla publishes a blog called The First Amendment. It presents a wide variety of issues and topics and is worthy of a visit and your time. The whole idea, Bulla says, is “to share news and ideas in a simple, easy-to-read, non-academic format among those of us who care about the First Amendment and student press rights.”
• Check out teaching issues and practices raised by University of Florida Knight Chair for Journalism Technologies and the Democratic Process Mindy McAdams at this site. Information on McAdams’ Web site covers the use of multimedia in reporting to and how to adjust journalism curricula to effectively include it.
• For information on a conference sponsored by several groups, go to the SPLC’s Campus Coverage Web site. The conference also produced interviews on iTunes with top reporters. Although material is aimed at collegiate reporters, it is certainly adaptable at the high school level.
Check out these links to expand your journalistic vision.
Also, watch this space in the coming months for new initiatives and information about scholastic press rights and responsibility from JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission.
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