Put Up recommendations
Developing a Put Up Policy
Sometimes the best way to think about a Takedown Policy is to devise a system of proactive steps to avoid needing to take information down. Here are 10 steps to take before publishing:
• Independently confirm information to be used for accuracy, context, perspective, truth and coherence
• Determine whether sources used are credible and representative of diverse and knowledgeable viewpoints
• Clearly attribute all information as needed for clarity and authority
• Avoid anonymous sources except in situations where they are the best source and identities need protection
• Determine whether sources used have conflicts of interest
• Ensure your information has gone through a vetting process with editors
• If using teens or young people as sources, do so with an understanding of minimizing harm as well as publishing truthful and contextual information
• If using social media sources, be sure information is attributed, accurate, in context and used legally and ethically
• Train and background reporters in legal and ethical issues
• If using crowd generated content, clearly indicate the source and ensure its credibility
• Be skeptical of any information you cannot verify
See more for the complete package:
Evaluating legal demands
Evaluating ethical choices
Decision models
Resources
Handling online comments
Takedown demands?
Press Rights Minute
Press Rights Minute is a new Scholastic Press Rights Commission service that offers quick and authoritative 60-second audio support for advisers, students and administrators on key journalistic issues. [pullquote]The link to all the links is https://soundcloud.com/scholastic-press-rights[/pullquote]
Commission member Sarah Nichols created the concept and commission members, students and others completed segments in the series.
We created the service, in part, to practice what we teach our students regarding multiple digital tools — it shows both advisers and students how easy it is to use SoundCloud as another way to tell stories or report information to their audience in a mobile-friend
ly way.
The Press Rights Commission hopes you will find this service helpful as well as easy to use. We intend to build on the number of segments we have as the year goes on. If you have topics you feel we should address, please let us know.
Activating the Press Rights Minutes
Here are two sample clips. The link to the others is https://soundcloud.com/scholastic-press-rights
Clip2: Getting it Right
Clip5: 10 Tips for Dealing with Censorship
We hope you find the clips helpful. If you have requests for comments on certain issues, please let us know by contacting John Bowen, commission chair.
Read More
Ethical coverage is contextual and relevant
by Megan Fromm
A recent discussion on the JEAHELP listserv focused on whether students can, and should, write about international news. With the crisis in Syria escalating, and the potential for an American strike more real than ever, high school journalists want to flex their international reporting muscles by covering the conflict in their scholastic media.
Students enjoy reporting on international affairs because in many ways, it makes them feel connected to events from which they would otherwise be totally disassociated. As their world perspectives widen, involvement in foreign politics helps them to develop their dispositions as global citizens.
Click here to learn more
In this way, engaging in media coverage of international affairs is a fantastic way to build students’ news and media literacy. The more they read and watch of the world beyond their school walls, the more they are likely to maintain this curiosity for information as they mature.
However, there are ways to cover international affairs in your scholastic publications that demonstrate both news literacy and relevancy for your school community. After all, the best and most ethical coverage is both contextual and relevant
With tremendous thanks to JEA’s fantastic membership, here are some tips from JEAHELP listserv members on how to encourage your students to cover international news in the most ethical, appropriate way:
1. Localize, localize, localize. Ask students: how can we connect something happening so far away to our own community? Who here, in this school, has a clear, immediate stake in what’s happening?
2. Report, report, report. Covering international politics requires interviews and research just like any other story. Remind students that writing about the media is not news. What local experts could they interview? Who in their community has perspective and experience to offer?
3. Consider secondary coverage. How can your students use infographics or other visual coverage to put international news in a local context? When information isn’t especially timely or local, alternative copy can help to humanize and localize.
4. Don’t regurgitate Google. If students could find the information elsewhere, your publication becomes irrelevant. Tell the stories students can’t find anywhere else.
Finally, advisers should remember that ethically and legally, content decisions in student publications that are designated public forums should ultimately be left in the hands of student editors. Encourage them to demonstrate the best reporting and news writing practices, and grade them accordingly if they fail to adhere to the standards for your publication. But telling students what to report, or not to report, facilitates neither good journalism nor news literacy.
Read MoreIn case you missed these curriculum, activity materials
During the last week or so, JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission released or assisted with the release of some important teaching and advising materials.
In case you missed them then, here are the links again:
• Lesson plans for Constitution Day, Sept. 17 (and links to plans from previous years).
• Links to essential information available on the commission site
• Information about Quill and Scroll’s The Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism revision now active and online. The print version will be available Nov. 1.
• Talking Points for teachers to use The Principal’s guide to fight against prior review and for the educational value of scholastic journalism.
• A blog on the importance of FOIA use.
JEA and its Scholastic Press Rights Commission hope these materials will be informative and useful.
Read MoreTalking Points: Starting a discussion between advisers and administrators
to build the case against prior review, restraint
by Lori Keekley
Advisers and administrators should be partners in education, not adversaries.
Advisers must teach principals about the importance of journalism and its relevance to today’s curriculum as well as enlighten them about the pitfalls of prior review and restraint.
We’ve created these Talking Points, based in part on Quill & Scroll’s new version of The Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism (available in print from Quill and Scroll) to help advisers begin to build their cases for a strong, student-driven journalism program.
Most points are further referenced in the Principal’s Guide, which are the page numbers that appear following the main point. Others have links in which advisers can find more information on the topic, including links to the online version of The Principal’s Guide and materials from JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission.
