For those who support prior review…
… When will it end?
At least three more recent situations should make one think about the educational validity of prior review:
• One, in Missouri, concerns a story on tattoos. It also led to students changing the content of their paper.
• The second, in Ohio, concerns an obituary and photo. According to the Student Press Law Center, the principal said she knew it was censorship and did not care.
• The third concerns a principal changing quotes while reviewing. Hopefully, we will have more information on this soon.
Of course, some of these don’t involve just review. Review leads to restraint, without consideration of the education implications.
When will it end?
When we agree it has no educational value and convince our various communities to no longer support its use.
Read MoreSeeking student media with open forum status
We’d love to hear from you if your student media are open forums for student expression by policy and/or practice.
For student media to be designated as a public/student forum, the school must either: • Have a school board- or administrator-enacted policy stating students make final content decisions of protected speech*, or
• Have a student media-generated policy declaring students make all final content decisions and also indicating/verifying that practice has been in effect at least two years, and there is no district or building policy that directly contradicts that practice. During that time, no adult, including the adviser, other faculty members, administrators or publication boards have dictated or changed content
In both situations, the advisers may, as part of the coaching process, offer advice and comment, but not make final content decisions
* The policy can still limit unprotected speech such as libel, obscenity and substantially disruptive material, but it must give other content control to the students
We are updating our Google Maps of forum schools and would like to include all that qualify. In several recent instances, people sought a more precise number of open forums to show administrators or others that such forums were viable.
You can submit your forum status by going here and completing the information. We will then get back to you with a few additional questions.
To see our Google Maps of schools with reported censorship or review issues, go here.
To report censorship or related issues, go here.
Read MoreA process for developing editorial policies that mean something
Editorial policies are among the most important documents advisers and their students will create. Done correctly, they will protect you and your students, your administrators and your school system against unwanted legal issues.
The first educational mission for all schools: To develop responsible citizens through enabling critical thinking and empowering student decision making.
Done incorrectly, policies will lead to such unwanted legal issues. Past experiences show sound policies are well worth the time and energy it takes to develop then.
Steps to develop policies include:
• Research
• Study
• Practice
Research
Search:
- The SPLC for policy models and articles about them
- The Internet for sample school policies
- The Internet for articles of the value of publications or editorial policies
- Provided links and articles from JEA’s Press Rights Commission, including JEA Model Policy and others
- Research data and academic studies for research into editorial policies
- Specific administration organization Web sites
- Search terms can include:
• Editorial policies
• Publications policies
• Staff policies
- Conduct interviews with those have are familiar with sound policies and those who have had issues with weaker ones. Some of the stronger policies can be found here .
Study
- Examine gathered material. What makes policies acceptable? Unacceptable?
- Based on readings or examination of a PowerPoint included on editorial policies, what topics or concepts need to be included in acceptable policies? Which ones should be avoided?
- Compile arguments for and against concepts and specific wording
- Evaluate selected points for strengths and weaknesses
- Outline acceptable policy sections and points. Reference models your work should be based on
- Evaluate your outline in separate groups and set up a process to complete the next steps
Practice
- Evaluate a draft policy for effectiveness and completeness
- Compare your draft policy with other student media policies
- Identify and communicate with scholastic media experts and legal experts about the effectiveness of the draft.
This process is a good start in the creation of or adaption of effective policies.
Journalism provides us with something unique to a culture – independent, reliable, accurate and comprehensive information that citizens require to be free. Anything else – from review to censorship – subverts democratic culture.
The Elements of Journalism
Kovach and Rosenstiel
And the number keeps growing
As much as we don’t want to see it or accept it, the number of student media being restrained grows rapidly.
For instance:
• In Boonville, Mo, the superintendent stopped distribution of The Pirate Press reportedly because the paper had not been reviewed as it was supposed to be. Coverage in the local paper did not report reasons for the stoppage in its first article. Look for an update soon.
• In Arizona, former student journalists are pursuing legal action in an attempt to continue fighting censorship of their high school’s newspaper.
• In Oregon, an student editorial on a community project so angered a former school board member he threatened the adviser and administrators now require all articles, including editorials, to be bylined.
If you are aware of more instance like these, please let us know using this blog’s comments or contact the SPLC or JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission.
The more we know about censorship and its ally prior review, the more we help each other to fight them.
Read MoreFighting off prior review
With examples of administrator censorship running rampant around the country, I thought it might be informative and helpful for other teachers, who may run into similar situations, to speak with a teacher who just successfully fought off censorship from the higher-ups at her school.
Konnie Krislock has been teaching journalism since the late 1960s and has been the adviser of the Evolution at the Orange County High School of the Arts since it began publishing in May 2006. The Evolution’s first issue of the year featured a couple of stories its administration found objectionable.
How Krislock handled the situation provides a pretty good template for how to handle censorship, particularly in a state that has anti-Hazelwood protections.
According to Krislock, the Evolution was able to get coverage in a major metro, the Orange County Register, as well as quick feeback from the SPLC. Krislock was able to use friends at Cal State Fullerton, a major state organization (CNPA) as well as enlist the office of a prominent state politician – state senator Leland Yee – to help her get word out and fight the administration’s attempted censorship. As I’ve found in my five years as an adviser, if administrator’s hate anything, it is bad press and people calling the school complaining about damn near anything.
“Get the word out about what is happening to people in the know,” Krislock said. “I really know everyone and this got covered fast and well. It didn’t hurt that my EIC had been a summer intern with the OCRegister and that the writer realized he knew her. I also know Cal State Fullerton’s communications dean (I used to teach adjunct there) and belong to CNPA, whose lawyer was a resource. I would tell everyone to get connected.”
Most interesting, and appalling, to me was the reaction of Krislock’s students to the situation. If you’ve ever taught in a school where this sort of censorship is permissible, it has a particularly pernicious effect on students.
“They were scared,” Krislock said. “Most said they were less likely to take assignments on Evolution after the grilling the editors got from administrators. Everyone was intimidated. Just today my editor started to shy away from a story on swine flu because she said ‘we’ve done enough controversy right now.'”
While administrators often intend to block some sort of news they find will draw unwanted attention to their school, crushing student enthusiasm and creativity for their work on the newspaper is the unwanted result. What advisers must do is work to counteract the effect the administration’s intrusion might have. Fortunately for the students at OCHSA, they’ve got one who’s willing to do the heavy lifting.
“I believe this is the ONE high school subject that teaches student everything they need to know about life,” Krislock said. “My quote in the SPLC article is totally accurate. This is my life’s passion: my adoration of high school students and their RIGHT to express themselves and their ideas in a public forum with an adviser who is knowledgeable and who cares about them and their opinions.”
Read More