Fighting the fight is a student-driven process: Part 2
Even though a fight against censorship is rooted in emotion, that emotion cannot direct the fight, 2009 JEA High School Journalist of the Year Henry Rome said.
Neither should the adviser.
Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said the adviser’s role is to prepare students ahead of time why press freedoms are important and reinforce it at every opportunity.
“The adviser can’t be the public face of a censorship case,” he said, “because at the end of the day, she must maintain her loyalty to the school.”
Behind the scenes, though, the adviser can – and should – educate administrators about why censorship is a bad strategy as practical management.
“It breeds greater disrespect for authority,” LoMonte said. “It tarnishes the image of the school much more than letting a negative story run uncensored. The adviser can, and should, find ways to call the principal’s and community’s attention to the positive things journalism does.”
But waging the fight is a student responsibility, LoMonte said and the student editors here did everything right.
“First and foremost,” he said, “their journalism was unassailable. Unfortunately, students are held to standards that often are higher than those of the top professional media entities, so that a misspelled word or a correction is enough for a school to pretextually censor their work. This work was bulletproof.”
Second, he said, students cannot, although it is an emotional fight students should not run around shouting “First Amendment.”
“That argument carries no weight with schools and very little weight with the public at large,” LoMonte said. “You must make the argument about the practical effects of attempting to censor student journalism. Seth and Henry convincingly made the case that, if the proposed prior-review policies were enacted, they would have felt fearful of pursuing the award-winning stories that had brought so much credit to the district.”
LoMonte said the number one recommendation to students is to build alliances before they are needed. Those alliances could include a media alumni association, a parent booster club, contacts with the local media. He also said join scholastic media organizations and enter as many competitions as possible. Send all contacts copies of student media.
“You need to anticipate the people arguing in favor of censorship,” LoMonte said, “will argue myths and misperceptions, not facts.”
How to counter that:
• Go into conversations asking questions with making arguments.”For instance,” LoMonte said, “when you get the argument prior review is necessary to avid the school being sued for libel, you could argue back. But it might be more effective to ask questions.”
• Talk about the strengths of the journalism program and how students have learned, and how others recognize this learning through awards and accolades.
• Bring the censorship into the public arena
Spoke students did all those things.
“They used the political process expertly by drawing on alliances with the professional media, parents, and the alumni community, to the point that they managed to put censorship of The Spoke on the radar as a contested school board campaign issue,” LoMonte said. “Just as importantly, they stayed on top of every move their school board made. Too often, harshly punitive policies are sneaked past the students and then are nearly impossible to reverse. These students vigilantly read every draft and attended every committee meeting, developing credibility that allowed them to speak to the school board with authority.”
In short, Rome said, Spoke students worked on a three-prong approach: engaging the district in conversations, reaching out to the community and working with local and national media to explain their story.
Next: Starting the new year off right
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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 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 MoreText of JEA letter to Stevenson admins, links to overall coverage
In response the ongoing prior review situation and restraint at Stevenson High in Lincolnshire, Illinois, JEA President Jack Kennedy recently sent school officials the following letter. Links to Chicago area coverage of the situation follow the letter:
Dr. Twadell,
I am a long-time admirer of Stevenson High School, having read numerous scholarly articles by faculty members on Professional Learning Communities and Advanced Placement courses, having followed “The Statesman” for over 20 years, and even having visited your campus just three years ago. I have always imagined Stevenson as a bastion of academic excellence, an example of the comprehensive American public high school at its very best.
Events involving “The Statesman” over the past year have certainly rattled that perception. I have no standing to get into particulars of how events have unfolded, but to have a second instance of the school administration and board leadership coming down on the side of squelching discussion and debate in a newspaper that has a long history of being an open forum for student expression is deeply troubling.
Garnering national attention is certainly not something new for Stevenson, but that this national attention is now so negative must also trouble you. I represent the national organization that supports scholastic journalism educators, and their students by extension, and I hope you will believe me when I say that your school is rapidly becoming the symbol of censorship in American schools. Instead of discussions about the progressive curriculum and fine instruction at the school, journalism educators from across the country are now discussing extraordinary pressure being applied to faculty advisers and administrative attempts to act as “super editors.” This micromanaging has no end. If someone outside the classroom has the power to approve or deny the mere coverage of certain issues, is there any doubt that we eventually find assistant principals correcting spelling, asking for more sources, and quibbling over how a photograph is presented?
Imagine applying the same sort of micromanaging to a football coach, with each play call being approved by some assistant athletic director sitting in the press box. That would be intolerable. Imagine threatening to simply cancel the next football game due to a poor performance by the team last week. In fact, imagine demanding absolute perfection from any sports team or course in the school. That sort of school climate would be equally intolerable.
I hope we can agree that our job, from board members to administration to classroom instructors, is to help our students improve each day, which presupposes that they are not perfect now. Will mistakes be made as we all work to produce valuable citizens? Of course. We will regret them. We will make adjustments. But we will not turn our backs on our young people, even when they disappoint.
The Journalism Education Association has consistently supported student free expression rights over its 85 years, but the association also advocates an adviser code of ethics, as well as distributing positions on photo manipulation, use of copyrighted materials, and Internet expression to our membership. In other words, the association advocates for responsible journalism in a broad array of areas. JEA stands ready to provide support and expertise to anyone involved in disputes over student expression. I sincerely hope you will not hesitate to contact John Bowen, JEA’s student press rights commission chair, Linda Puntney, our executive director, or me if we can be of any assistance.
I would like to think that, ultimately, we agree on the importance of student expression as part of the high school experience.
I ask that Stevenson High School return to its former status as a school where students come first, and where free, open, and responsible discussion of even the most sensitive issues is encouraged.
Coverage of the situation:
• Stevenson High officials halt publication of Statesman
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-stevenson-school-paper-20-nov20,0,1175320.story
• Students say district forced them to publish
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/chi-high-school-newspaper-25-nov
• Stevenson High orders students to publish
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/comments/?id=339605#storycomments
• Presses roll at Stevenson, without offending stories
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/11/presses-roll-at-stevenson-high—-without-offending-stories.html
• Student newspaper is a lot leaner, less controversial
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-stevenson-censored-26nov26,0,5752444.story?obref=obnetwork
• Controversial Stevenson student newspaper released
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=339713
• Muzzling students
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1126edit2nov26,0,6053750.story
• Stevenson High to students: publish or perish
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/dennis-byrne-barbershop/2009/11/stevenson-high-to-j-students-publish-or-perish.html
• SPJ blog by David Cuillier
http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/foi/
• Il high school students face censorship
http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/campus/
Your responses essential to clarification of student press freedoms
One way or another, no matter where censorship of scholastic media is reported, we need you to respond to comments.
All one has to do is to read the comment sections of of the Daily Herald and the Chicago Tribune, among others, to see the lack of understanding about the First Amendment and how it applies – or should apply – to scholastic media.
All it takes is 10 minutes. You know the principles and the educational validity of student free expression and decision-making.
Your colleagues facing censorship, their students and the parents of the community need to know there are others who abhor censorship.
After all, freedom of student expression is what are are passionate about, something we believe in. Something we want to see continue.
Let those who don’t seem to believe in these principles hear from you today – and all the tomorrows it takes.
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