Students forced to publish censored paper
Turkeys in the news tomorrow may not be just on people’s plates.
Lately, some have been dressed as administrators at Stevenson High in Lincolnshire, Illinois.
First, school officials’ objections held up the paper’s initial release. Then they forced journalism students to remove several stories and several pages from the latest issue.
Next, administrators demanded the issue run despite student objections. According to information in the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune, administrators wouldn’t allow students to remove their bylines from the stories and threatened to fail the student journalists if they did not do as told.
Prior review, administrators said last year when a previous dispute occurred, would only last a short time.
They were right about one thing. Review is now prior restraint of the least educationally defensible kind.
Executive director of the Student Press Law center, Frank LoMonte, called administrative actions a confession that they had lied.
“Stevenson’s conduct today is a confession that its administrators lied when they claimed in a press release last week that they had problems with only one story in the Statesman,” he said. “We trust that the school board will immediately investigate the source of this intentionally false public statement and will remove any employee who played a role in distributing it.
LoMonte also praised student editors.
“Student editors have dealt with Stevenson in an honest, professional and restrained manner, attempting to work out a peaceful resolution. Their reward for it was a sucker-punch in the gut. To threaten the highest-achieving students in the school with flunking journalism, potentially endangering their college careers, simply confirms that Stevenson puts its image ahead of the well-being of its students. When a school tries this hard to silence student journalism, the public should start asking hard questions about what is going on at Stevenson High School that its administrators are so desperate to conceal.”
This Thanksgiving the communities that send their students to Stevenson definitely may want to be thinking of ways to deal with these leftover turkeys.
For related reporting and coverage, go here, here, here and here.
Read MoreFighting scholastic media censorship must start locally
They just keep on coming.
Stevenson High. Timberland High. Stow-Munroe Falls High. Boonville High and others too numerous to list.
And those are just some we know about.
But there are countless others — the smaller, lesser known stories you hear about at workshops like the recent JEA/NSAP convention in DC.
• Like the Virginia student journalist who needed suggestions on how to work with a principal about prior review because the principal offered no justification for censoring topics administrators considered negative to the school.
• Like the Michigan school who wanted guidelines on how to report controversial issues so they could remain review-free.
• Like the student who would not say what state she was from, just that she was from the Bible Belt. She sought help on how to report on her principal being “under persecution” because of discussion of Christian issues
• Like the South Carolina student journalist trying to understand why her conservative community was upset about the reporting on a pregnant teen.
Each of these instances deserves our attention as much as the larger, more publicized instances.
To help journalism teachers and advisers, we need to know when to offer our help and why. It is much harder to assist these students, advisers and parents if we don’t know the issues and the ways we can help.
If your student media face censorship or prior review, please let us know so we can act to support in ways you feel best for your situation.
Here are some ways:
• Report the issue to the Student Press Law Center .
• Complete a censorship report by going to The Center for Scholastic Journalism to report censorship or prior review, and fill out the forms.
• If the adviser is a member of JEA, activate the organization’s Adviser Assistance Program by contacting your state JEA representative, your regional director or JEA headquarters. You can get that information from the JEA Web site.
• Leave a comment on this blog. A member of JEA’s press rights commission or members of the other commissions (certification, curriculum, multi-cultural or middle school) will get back to you.
Help us know who needs assistance and attention from the most well-known to the smallest issue.
Read MoreCan the Elements of Journalism help replace prior review?
As we’ve tried to emphasize in the last several posts, prior review is not a valid or workable educational practice. It betrays the trust of the audience (as well as that of student journalists and their advisers) and negates any concept of students taking responsibility for what they write.
Let’s see if we can build some common ground to lessen the need for prior review, which we have seen lately undermines the whole educational process.
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel call this approach the science of reporting.
Together, these points, say the authors, lead to the discipline of verification, meaning published material is accurate, truthful and in context.
Paired with responsible journalism, as defined by JEA and outlined in an earlier post, Kovach and Rosenstiel’s verification of information and science of reporting provide a framework for scholastic journalism without prior review.
Given the outrageous examples of recent prior review, isn’t it time to give student journalists a chance to prove good journalism can and will occur without review?
In their book, The Elements of Journalism, they outline five points for this concept:
• Never add anything that was not there: This requires solid reporting and a variety of credible sources.
• Never deceive the audience: This requires building a framework of trust with your audiences and ties to the next point.
• Be as transparent as possible about methods and motive: It allows the audience to judge the validity of the information, the process by which it was gathered and the motives and biases of the journalists providing it, the authors say.
• Rely on your own original reporting: Reporters who can do their own work, with encouragement and support from school officials and advisers will produce stronger, more complete reporting. This might even mean turning off the Internet filters so they can have unfiltered access to information and sources.
• Exercise humility: Journalists should be humble about their own skills as well as what they see and hear from sources. This reinforces the need to know perspective on stories as well as being open-minded to story-changing resources.
Recent examples of prior review leading to censorship clearly show we must find a way to encourage students practice what they are taught. We hope The Elements of Journalism can help pave the way.
Read MoreMove over, Michael Myers. There’s a new slasher in town.
It really must be the season of the witch.
The Student Press Law Center today tweeted yearbook censorship in a Summerville, Georgia, high school. According to a WRCB-TV report, the new principal censored the fall-released yearbook prepared by students and their now retired adviser last spring.
His target: four pages of shirtless boys playing basketball.
The pages were cut from the book. Slashed, leaving ragged edges, tattered memories.
The reason: “Inadvertently,” WRCB-TV quoted the new principal, ” the school administration did not approve the 2008 -2009 yearbook in its entirety; there were several photographs that did not reflect an appropriate image of the school or our community. The pages which contained the photos were removed.” The principal declined further comment.
If that does not bring a chill, consider that other photos of boys without shirts remain in the yearbook.
The system’s superintendent told the television station the principal “is trying to improve the image of the school, and the academic programs of the school. He has it headed in the right direction.”
It is a direction the former adviser does not approve.
In a video section of the report the retired adviser said he was very disappointed with the decision to mutilate the yearbook.
” There was absolutely nothing inappropriate about the pages that were cut from the book,” the adviser of 27 years was quoted on the video. “I am offended by the lack of regard shown for the students pictured on those page, the students who worked on the yearbook staff last year, and most of all, the students who purchased the yearbook.”
So say we all.
Move over Michael Myers. There is a new slasher in town and, frighteningly enough, another tale of horror in yet another town.
Read MoreTattoos: Save your ink, student journalists
One of the few academic studies of body art, “Tattoos and Body Piercings in the United States: A National Data Set,” shows 24 percent of respondents had tattoos…and that was 2006. USA News & World Report said this fall parlors for such art are “one of America’s fastest growing categories of retail business, with nearly one tattoo shop opening each day.”
It’s a big deal, right? And, while the stats haven’t caught up with what’s happening to teens now, it’s a good bet kids are getting inked at a pretty speedy rate. Sometimes that’s legal, and sometimes it’s not, depending on their age, the state’s laws and possible parental consent.
So it sounds like a great topic for student media. What is legal and what isn’t? Need parental consent? Why students get tattoos? Safety and health issues? And… for a follow-up — long-term effects? Regrets those who got tattoos have? Pain and cost of removal? Employer reactions? Plenty to cover.
Not so, say at least some school administrators.
Recently, the Timberland High School principal in Wentzville, Mo., pulled first a spread with photos and text about tattoos. Later, he told The Wolf’s Howl staff to pull ads for a local tattoo parlor, a client with a full-year contract, meaning a loss of several hundred dollars.
His excuse, editor-in-chief Nikki McGee told the Student Press Law Center Web site reporter: This falls in the category of “drugs, alcohol and etc.” and thus is censorable. McGee told the SPLC she had yet to receive an answer to her request to define “etc.”
A Kentucky newspaper adviser shared his concern when his principal wanted to cut an article about teacher and student tattoos. The tattoo photos weren’t really the issue — the principal seemed more concerned about teachers who said they got theirs “with their husband’s gambling money” or in a trade for a beer. “I don’t see any possibility of this article causing a great disruption,” the adviser said to a listerv.
This concern with tattoos isn’t exactly new. In 2005, Oak Ridge (Tenn.) High School principal objected to photos of students with tattoos, partly, she said, because the girl’s parents didn’t know she had such body art.
Thus tattoos may be increasingly popular, and teens may want and even need to know more about them. At the moment, though, consider this topic along with sex and drugs as something to cover with care and professionalism. Be prepared to explain why it is an important topic and worth the ink….and then be prepared to call the SPLC.
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