Signing on as FAPFA candidate makes powerful symbolic statement
Confession: For the past 10 days, I’ve spent a good chunk of time glued to media coverage of President-elect Trump, reading about his meetings with prospective leaders and reports of cabinet appointments, cries against Hamilton and SNL on Twitter and updates about the on-again, off-again New York Times meeting.
My nervousness mounts as we transition to a new president known for his attacks on news organizations, for bullying those who ask tough questions, for threats to “open up” libel laws, for ugly rants against those who hold steady to report on the record the actions of our leaders.
And while I’ve made sure to read, donate, sign petitions and facilitate respectful dialogue, I’ve also spent the past 10 days thinking about my journalism students. What can I do? What can we do? What can they do?
As is often the case, the greatest potential for impact is within the classroom. It’s clear to me that my own students’ efforts practicing, protecting and promoting their First Amendment rights matter more than ever.
Next week, Dec. 1, 2016, is the deadline for JEA’s First Amendment Press Freedom Award. I’m glad my students will apply, and here are three reasons I urge other scholastic media programs to do the same:
[1] The FAPFA process provides an important opportunity for students to revisit the core principles of their journalism program as they tell the stories of their school community through truthful and accurate reporting using a wide range of diverse, credible sources. The editors know their publication policies inside and out, but do the other staff members? Would every student on staff be able to answer the FAPFA questions accurately? Perhaps this an opportunity for editors to conduct a mini-lesson to educate or review with rookies some “What happens if …” scenarios.
[2] The possibility of recognition as a First Amendment school is another way to increase awareness in the school and throughout the community. Even if school administrators are supportive of students’ free expression rights both in theory and in practice, it’s likely there are community members who are less aware of what it means for students to make all content decisions free of administrative censorship. It’s another chance to spread the word about what the First Amendment means and why it matters.
Remember, 39 percent of Americans could not name even one of the five freedoms.
Can FAPFA recognition serve to make all stakeholders better understand the educational significance of providing students with an outlet for free expression and the long-term benefits of empowering students with the responsibility of the decision-making process?
Celebrating a school’s First Amendment Press Freedom Award recognition can play a role in the case for scholastic media curriculum development and the long game in protecting both First Amendment education and scholastic journalism specifically.
[3] Signing on as a FAPFA candidate makes a powerful symbolic statement at a crucial time.
My own students have protection from California Ed Code 48907, but they’ll still be using the opportunity JEA’s First Amendment Press Freedom Award provides. In other words, they’ll apply for the award because they can. It’s a chance to speak up and speak out for why that freedom of expression matters so much, and a chance to draw attention to states where students don’t have that right.
Discussing the questions on the first-round FAPFA form reminds students that not every student media program is lucky enough to operate in a student-led environment with journalists empowered by the critical thinking experience of their decision-making process. It puts things in perspective. It emboldens them to use the tools at their disposal, creatively and positively, to fight the good fight. It draws attention to the injustice in schools and states with administrative censorship and helps increase efforts toward press rights legislation.
Editors can proudly share their efforts in attempt to leverage that social currency and widen the scope of attention for First Amendment freedoms just when the New Voices movement — and new White House administration — need it most.
by Sarah Nichols, MJE
Read MoreChanging not so great expectations
by John Bowen
People shouldn’t be surprised at what happened at University of Missouri recently involving student media trying to do their jobs and groups disagreeing with what their role is.
After all, they have seen it in their secondary schools since at least 1988.
They have only to look at the impact of various Supreme Court decisions starting with Hazelwood as a contributing cause of the problem.
Hazelwood and other decisions gave schools the ability to control student expression, to limit what questions were asked, what stories were told and whether they were told thoroughly. It is possible this contributes to access issues, too.
In some cases, students, teachers, administrators and community members have known nothing but a limited, controlled and incomplete student media. Perhaps an expectation of thorough and accurate reporting starting in high school could help improve the access issue.
If these groups do not support and advocate for free expression and journalistically responsible student media, they set the stage for later misunderstanding of media roles and obligations in a democracy.
Like actions at the University of Missouri.
It should not be surprising then that both a mass communication faculty member and a university administrator sought to control the media’s role and access during an incident when protesters wanted to bar media from a public event.
They may have known no better because of what many high school environments allow to become the expected role of journalism: lapdogs that do not challenge authority, do not seek a complete story and do not carry out their role in a democratic society.
[pullquote]They may have known no better because of what many high school environments allow to become the expected role of journalism: lapdogs that do not challenge authority, do not seek a complete story and do not carry out their role in a democratic society.[/pullquote]
We all can learn from the events at the University of Missouri. It could happen again, elsewhere, if we don’t.
We can:
• As teachers, ensure our students have access to information and principles that show the importance of free expression in student media.
• As teachers and students, apply the principles of the First Amendment to student media, in policy and practice.
• As teachers, students, administrators and community members, we can demand our states pass legislation that would guarantee student free expression, like North Dakota that just passed New Voices Act and 20-some states looking at similar legislation.
• As citizens in a democracy, we can inform ourselves about the role of media in a democracy and empower students to fulfill it in socially responsible ways.
We can, and should, in part because of the misinformed reaction to student media at the University of Missouri, act as the Student Press Law Center and the Journalism Education Association both agree: Cure Hazelwood.
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Sitemap for developing
Policy and Ethics in Student Media
Policy and Ethics Sitemap
Links from the boldfaced main sections below are intended to be sequential in nature but can also be used menu style. Pick one model from policies and as many as you need from the ethics/staff manual sections and you are on your way to building your own Foundations package. We think the policy section should come first since it sets the stage for all other areas, but that choice remains yours.
Introductory articles to policies
This section will outline the importance of our two types of policies, board-level and media-level and provide you with recommended language as well as comments on each of the five recommended levels. Other articles outline public forums and prior review.
—Front page to the project —Introductory article —Public forum overview —Prior review and restraint —Quick access to policy models —Creating a mission statement –Model for ethical guidelines
Introductory article link to ethics
This section will introduce how we visualize our concept, why we created it this way and our thoughts on updating ethics guidelines and staff manual. Please note that we believe in user additions to all these sections.
Establishing program Structure
We designed the ethics and staff manual sections into four main segments, from establishing the principles and ethical guidelines to evaluating them. This group of guidelines and procedures strives to establish basic principles and structure that work for all student media.
—School board and media policy —Publication level policy
—The role of student media —The role of the adviser
—Editor-staff relationships —Staff conduct
—Balance and objectivity —Academic dishonesty
—Ownership of student content —jeamodeleditpolicy
— Creating “Put Up” guidelines —Recognizing public spaces
—Understanding “no publication” guidelines —Publishing satire
Planning and gathering information
This group of guidelines stresses basic principles and process of information gathering across platforms. These represent more detailed approaches to carrying out daily journalistic functions.
—News judgment and news values —Prior review/prior restraint
—Controversial coverage —Diversity of sources
—Recording sources during interviews —Verification
—Allowing sources to see content before publication
—Email, texting and digital information gathering
—Unnamed sources —Treatment of minors
—Public records and meetings —Treatment of sources
Producing content
This group of ethics statements and staff manual procedures focuses more on the production of journalistic content, from print to social media and from reporting to advertising.
—Handling links —Guides for breaking news
—Providing content —Writing process
—Social media –Use of profanity
—Obituaries —Sponsored content
—Advertising —Visual reporting
— Producing video dubs — Handling user-generated content
Assessing and responding
We envision this section focusing on how students and advisers evaluate their content. We would also include specialized issues.
—Evaluating and critiquing content —Correcting errors
—Takedown requests — Letters to the editor/online comments
Requests for specific ethical/manual statements
This version of Policy and Ethical guidelines is a living, breathing document to which we welcome comments and suggestions. If you have experience with something we did not include, please use the comment section here to let us know what you would like us to add, or just to comment.
Resources
We intend for these resource lists bring additional support and perspective to each of the more specialized and directly related resources attached to each of the files above.
If there are resources you find useful, please use the comment section here to share your knowledge.
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Embattled editors tell their powerful stories at SPLC dinner
Sometimes it’s the bad things in life that help a person find a cause, a passion or a pathway. From a Pulitzer Prize-winner who sued his principal in the ‘70s to two teens, still closely involved in censorship issues at their own schools, those at the Student Press Law Center’s 40th anniversary dinner Oct. 16 heard stories every teen journalist and adviser should hear.
Read MoreTaking your student media online:
Will students follow online news media?
An ethics lesson
Taking your student media online: Will audiences follow online news media?
by John Bowen
Description
What should you consider before taking your student media online? This lesson will examine areas students should explore prior to transitioning to online.
Students will work through the following questions:
• Why should audiences follow you online?
• What are the benefits of online news?
• What are the downsides of online news?
• What approaches would you take to motivate potential audience to follow you online?
• What would you do to ensure those approaches follow legal and ethical standards?
• How would you create this process into guidelines for your ethics and staff manuals?
Objectives
• Students will read articles concerning taking a publication online.
• Students will work in groups to create a plan to move their media online.
• Students will create a guideline outlining why taking a publication online is important.
Common Core State Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7
Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.6
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C
Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives.
Length
100 minutes (two 50-minute classes)
Materials / resources
Online ethics guidelines for student media
Your students love social media…and so can you
Cyberlaw: Internet and online media
Living social: College newsrooms revisiting ethics policies for the Twitter generation
Ways to have a social media presence for your staff when your high school says ‘no’
5 reasons why an online newspaper is not the end of the world
High school journalists take a crash course in newspaper economics
College newspaper readership
Lesson step-by-step
Day 1
Have students read in four groups. Each group reads two different articles before class to help frame the next class discussion.
• Online ethics guidelines for student media
• Your students love social media…and so can you
• Cyberlaw: Internet and online media
• Ways to have a social media presence for your staff when your high school says ‘no’
• 5 reasons why an online newspaper is not the end of the world
• Living social: College newsrooms revisiting ethics policies for the Twitter generation
• High school journalists take a crash course in newspaper economics
• College newspaper readership
1. Student work time — 50 minutes
Using what they read for today, students will work in groups of 5 to plan the process of moving their student media online. Their work should ensure that the processes used are ethical. Remind students they will presented their group’s decision the following day.
Day 2
1. Presentation preparation — 5 minutes
Give students a few moments to review their notes.
2. Presentations — 25 minutes
Student groups should present their plans to each other, allowing time for clarification and alternatives.
3. Guideline creation — 20 minutes
The entire group will then create one or more approaches to inform others about why taking student media online is important. This should result in a workable Action Plan models and guidelines for ethical and staff manuals.
Differentiation
Use this section to provide teachers changes to the lesson plan to accommodate students at different skill levels or in different learning environments. If this involves different materials or resources, list those in the Materials/Resources section.
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