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Transparency helps keep air in the balloon

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Photoillustration by JBowen

by Stan Zoller, MJE

Al McGuire, the late basketball coach at Marquette University, used to remind folks that championship basketball wasn’t all “seashells and balloons.”

I suppose you could apply that to just about anything – life, final exams, losing a close game or even journalism.

No matter how many laws are passed, policies adopted and awards won, getting that story isn’t, wait for it, all seashells and balloons.

You just don’t go out and get the perfect source, have the editors love your first draft and the hierarchy throw roses at you when the story runs.

It ain’t all seashells and balloons. 

Journalism educators know the peaks and valleys and most (hopefully) try to convey to their student scribes that journalism, like life, isn’t all seashells and balloons.

Student journalists need to realize they may be on the scrutiny bubble more than they want to be. A slip up can result in a fall from grace.

What can help avoid that fall? Honesty and transparency.

While some student journalists may salivate over getting “that story” that makes them a top dog, it’s essential they gain the trust of their news consumers, no matter how the news is consumed.

In addition to getting well-rounded sources, balanced sources and doing pain-staking fact checking, reporters need to be transparent and tell readers/viewers what they know and what they don’t know.

News consumers also need to know from whom reporters are getting information – even if it’s an unnamed source.

While this sounds fundamental reporting, it goes beyond that. Transparent reporting instills in a news consumer’s mind that the reporter and his/her media are working not only to provide quality reporting, but there is an unparalleled effort to establish the aforementioned trust.

This is not a case-by-case basis, but a regular and closely monitored way of reporting, fact checking and publishing, whether online, on air or in print. Guidelines for transparency should be included in student media manuals.

With more states passing New Voices laws, the bar for scholastic journalists is being raised. Lawmakers and school management organizations may very well be monitoring how student journalists handle the liberties afforded them by New Voices laws.

Successful passage of legislation does not give student journalists, nor their advisers, carte blanche operation of their media. I recall talking to an adviser whose state had recently passed a New Voices law. The adviser was euphoric with the passage telling me that “now my kids can do whatever they want.”

No, they can’t. Nor should they.

Responsible journalism at any level requires strong fundamentals, ethics and fairness. Not to mention transparency. 

It’s not all seashells and balloons. It can be, but not if we let the air out of the balloons.

With more states passing New Voices laws, the bar for scholastic journalists is being raised. Lawmakers and school management organizations may very well be monitoring how student journalists handle the liberties afforded them by New Voices laws.

“With more states passing New Voices laws, the bar for scholastic journalists is being raised. Lawmakers and school management organizations may very well be monitoring how student journalists handle the liberties afforded them by New Voices laws –– Stan Zoller