Start 2022 with a scholastic press rights refresh
by Sarah Nichols, JEA president, MJE
The first few weeks of a new semester provide an important reset or blank slate. After a challenging fall for advisers, your goal may be to revisit scholastic press rights topics and do more with law and ethics training, especially if the past few months of reteaching and rebuilding called for massive shifts in your curriculum.*
Or maybe January marks the start of a new journalism course entirely, so you’re set to meet a new crop of students and want to begin on building awareness of First Amendment issues and support for student press freedom from the beginning.
In any case, it’s always a good time to include more law and ethics in your journalism program. Here are some ideas for how to start 2022 with attention toward scholastic press rights education.
- Follow the news. Begin with the wonderful news of New Jersey becoming the 15th state to enact specific press rights legislation. The passage of S108 hit right as many schools adjourned for winter break, so this is a great time to discuss it in class. If students haven’t learned about New Voices yet, now is the perfect time.
Key questions: Do students know what press rights protection they have based on where you live? Are you in a state working toward New Voices legislation? Are there ways your students can participate?
For balance, take a look next at this (possibly still-unfolding) not-wonderful news in Colorado.
Key questions: How do you feel after reading the student’s op-ed and the news article about what happened? Why? When it comes to student press freedom, do your students know the differences between public and private schools? If your program operates in a state with legal protection, do your students know what to do if they feel their rights have been violated? Do they know about the JEA’s Panic Button from the Scholastic Press Rights Committee? After reading about the situation at Regis Jesuit, do your students feel called to action somehow? Is this something to write about or explore further?
- Plan for remote learning. Make use of online resources, either to adjust as some schools return to virtual environments or to provide alternatives for students at home due to isolation, illness or other circumstances.
An easy way to provide choice and flexibility is to invite students to choose their own law and ethics session from this free online repository coordinated by Virginia High School League and Virginia Association of Journalism Teachers and Advisers. Students can produce a slide, mini-lesson or other short debrief to share what they learned.
Seniors can work on Journalist of the Year entries and develop their law and ethics section with some extra help from this Portfolio Polish resource.
Prospective editors can build a plan for how they’ll teach important scholastic press rights issues to next year’s staff. Have you added a related question to your editor interview process?
Students of any experience level can also view and analyze these award-winning First Amendment PSAs and create their own.
All of these options work well for in-person scenarios, too, of course!
- Gear up for Scholastic Journalism Week. What gets scheduled gets done, so it’s time to help students plan for #SJW2022 (Feb. 21-25, 2022) and the #AmplifyingVoices theme.
Student Press Freedom Day is a signature aspect of the week-long celebration. The Student Press Law Center has developed a variety of activities and suggestions for how students can take part in advocacy, outreach and more for a day of action Feb. 24.
Look for more ideas — and share what you’re doing — on social media.
If you’re beginning a semester with new or transfer students, don’t forget to match them with a mentor from your staff to provide extra training on students’ rights and responsibilities as journalists.
As we embrace this fresh start, let’s show students how important these topics are by doing what we can to incorporate law and ethics activities on a regular basis in 2022.
* Don’t beat yourself up about what you didn’t get to last semester. Just start fresh!
Read MoreReporting controversy, issues student journalists can tell best
by John Bowen, MJE
The above statement is a good reminder in 2020 of our social responsibility to report all aspects of teen issues – those with good, bad and impact – because our audiences have a right to know.
These are stories student journalists can tell best.
As journalists we do not actively protest, lead walkouts or engage others We examine issues and events with diverse points of view, in context, accurate and complete that might as effectively create change.
We are mirrors to reflect events and candles to illuminate causes and issues that surround us, like the March 14 and March 24 planned protests, marches and discussions initiated by student reactions to the shooting deaths of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.
Our journalistic leadership should not prevent expression of our personal feelings and views. Our first obligation is to the truth as Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel write in The Elements of Journalism.
“A community that fails to reflect its community deeply will not succeed,” the authors write in Elements, third edition.”But a newspaper that does not challenge its community’s values and preconceptions will lose respect for failing to provide the honesty and leadership newspapers are expected to offer.”
In this case and others, student media can best tell that story.
We lead when we channel our insights into reporting so communities – or societies – can make intelligent and informed decisions affecting our democracy.
To assist students as they report events and issues surrounding walkouts and protests, local and national, the SPRC begins a series of blogposts focusing on protest in America, its relevance and why student media should make every effort to report on its deeper issues.
To help start the discussion, note the following links:
- Covering controversy Controversy is often in the eye of the beholder. The best way to prevent a subject from becoming controversial is to use verifiable information, in context, from reliable sources – truthful, accurate, thorough and complete reporting. Students should be able to show why they used some information and not other. They should be transparent about why their coverage was important.
- Practice sensitivity in your reporting How do we, as today’s information consumers and creators, sift through the rumors, the gossip, the failed memories, the spin to capture something as accurately as possible? How can we overcome our own limits of perception, our biases, our experience and come to an account people will see as reliable. This essence of journalism is a discipline of verification. Controversy is in the eyes of the beholder. Our job is make sure anything controversial is reported thoroughly, accurately and coherently.
- Respecting privacy and public space important for photographers, too Student journalists should never invade the privacy of others while accessing information or photos for a story.However. it is their journalistic duty to know what constitutes invasion of privacy or what spaces they are legally allowed to access and what spaces they are not legally allowed to access. Student journalists should check the legal and ethical parameters of public space and the latest recommendations for journalistic activity from the Student Press Law Center.
- Student Press Law Center online guide and resources for student journalists The new resource page is just one of several major steps SPLC took to ensure student journalists can cover protests, walkouts and the growing gun control discussions freely and fairly. See its news release: http://bit.ly/2ozAW5o
- Covering walkouts and protests From the SPLC, this guide provides helpful information student journalists reporting protests and walk-outs.
Resources:
Introductionand Civic engagement and journalism, Principal’s Guide to Scholastic Journalism
The 2017 State of the First Amendment, Newseum
High School Journalism Matters, American Press Institute
Framework for 21st Century Learning, Partnership for 21st Century Learning
Civic Implications of Secondary School Journalism, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
Principals, presidents and getting along, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission
Teaching grit for citizenship — why we must empower, not shield students, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission
Read MoreStart the year strong while
promoting students’ press rights
by Lindsay Coppens
The Harbinger Adviser, Algonquin Regional High School, Northborough, Mass.
Although we may want to jump right into the business of putting out the first print issue or filling the website with killer content, 
there are steps you as an adviser can take at the beginning of the year to help your publication’s staff start strong while fostering their independence. These steps all connect with communication and establishing good relationships.
• Have a meeting with your editors-in-chief and the school principal.
It’s always a shame and usually doesn’t bode well if the first interaction between editors and administration is a negative one. Start off the year with good communication and establish a good working relationship with your school’s administration. While you may act as a facilitator at the meeting (or hopefully just sit back and listen to most of it), it would be best for the student editors, not the adviser, to contact the administrator for this meeting. This emphasizes the principal and editors should be the ones directly communicating most of the time, not the adults.
Read MoreWays to celebrate Constitution Day 2018
The Scholastic Press Rights Committee is again excited to provide lesson plans and activities to help you celebrate Constitution Day and the First Amendment. Constitution Day recognized Sept. 17 each year, and we have a trove of new and archived lessons and activities to help you raise awareness of the First Amendment’s rights and applications for students.
Take a look at the new lessons:
Read MoreReporting stories student journalists
can best tell
by John Bowen, MJE
The above statement is a good reminder or our social responsibility to report all aspects of teen issues – those with good, bad and impact – because our audiences have a right to know.
These are stories student journalists can tell best.
As journalists we do not actively protest, lead walkouts or engage others We examine issues and events with diverse points of view, in context, accurate and complete that might as effectively create change.
We are mirrors to reflect events and candles to illuminate causes and issues that surround us, like the March 14 and March 24 planned protests, marches and discussions initiated by student reactions to the shooting deaths of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.
Our journalistic leadership should not prevent expression of our personal feelings and views. Our first obligation is to the truth as Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel write in The Elements of Journalism.
“A community that fails to reflect its community deeply will not succeed,” the authors write in Elements, third edition.”But a newspaper that does not challenge its community’s values and preconceptions will lose respect for failing to provide the honesty and leadership newspapers are expected to offer.”
In this case and others, student media can best tell that story.
We lead when we channel our insights into reporting so communities – or societies – can make intelligent and informed decisions affecting our democracy.
To assist students as they report events and issues surrounding walkouts and protests, local and national, the SPRC begins a series of blogposts focusing on protest in America, its relevance and why student media should make every effort to report on its deeper issues.
We start our discussion with the following links and will continue March 19.
- Covering controversy Controversy is often in the eye of the beholder. The best way to prevent a subject from becoming controversial is to use verifiable information, in context, from reliable sources – truthful, accurate, thorough and complete reporting. Students should be able to show why they used some information and not other. They should be transparent about why their coverage was important.
- Practice sensitivity in your reporting How do we, as today’s information consumers and creators, sift through the rumors, the gossip, the failed memories, the spin to capture something as accurately as possible? How can we overcome our own limits of perception, our biases, our experience and come to an account people will see as reliable. This essence of journalism is a discipline of verification. Controversy is in the eyes of the beholder. Our job is make sure anything controversial is reported thoroughly, accurately and coherently.
- Respecting privacy and public space important for photographers, too Student journalists should never invade the privacy of others while accessing information or photos for a story.However. it is their journalistic duty to know what constitutes invasion of privacy or what spaces they are legally allowed to access and what spaces they are not legally allowed to access. Student journalists should check the legal and ethical parameters of public space and the latest recommendations for journalistic activity from the Student Press Law Center.
- Student Press Law Center online guide and resources for student journalists The new resource page is just one of several major steps SPLC took to ensure student journalists can cover protests, walkouts and the growing gun control discussions freely and fairly. See its news release: http://bit.ly/2ozAW5o
- Covering walkouts and protests From the SPLC, this guide provides helpful information student journalists reporting protests and walk-outs.
Read More