Avoiding Unprotected Speech
As a student journalist, even though I started out in yearbook, I still learned had to learn the basic laws of journalism. In yearbook we still have to be able to practice these skills, because at the end of the day we’re are publicizing the truth.
My senior year, when my school had its first real lock-down after the recent school shootings, simply from a robbery down the road the entire atmosphere of our campus changed. Students began to recognize the threat to their safety while at school, and my co-editors and I decided to cover this.
Immediately following the dismissal from the lock-down, my co-editors and I took to the hallways, interviewing every student we could catch. We got several quotes about different experiences during the lock-down. One specific student mentioned seeing a teacher in a bulletproof vest sprinting to their truck to retrieve their concealed carried weapon, but to avoid misinformation we interviewed the teacher to fact check. However, when interviewed the teacher declined to comment. We included in our story that they declined to comment to let our audience know that my co-editors and I attempted to fact check.
As a student journalist, even though I started out in yearbook, I still learned had to learn the basic laws of journalism. In yearbook we still have to be able to practice these skills, because at the end of the day we’re are publicizing the truth.
My senior year, when my school had its first real lock-down after the recent school shootings, simply from a robbery down the road the entire atmosphere of our campus changed. Students began to recognize the threat to their safety while at school, and my co-editors and I decided to cover this.
Immediately following the dismissal from the lock-down, my co-editors and I took to the hallways, interviewing every student we could catch. We got several quotes about different experiences during the lock-down. One specific student mentioned seeing a teacher in a bulletproof vest sprinting to their truck to retrieve their concealed carried weapon, but to avoid misinformation we interviewed the teacher to fact check. However, when interviewed the teacher declined to comment. We included in our story that they declined to comment to let our audience know that my co-editors and I attempted to fact check.
Including the Self Contained in the Yearbook
My entire three years on the yearbook staff we have struggled with including the self-contained, special-ed students in the book. I believe that the work and activities they do is just as important as any other athlete or club member. To guarantee these student’s coverage within this year’s book, my co-editors and I marked specific places throughout the book where we wanted to have self-contained students covered.
When the time came to cover these students in the book for the first time, the group assigned to that spread immediately ran into issues. I took photos of the self-contained students having a Christmas party, when the group went to ask the self-contained teacher names of specific students within the photo, the group was told that a specific student had a release form signed and that their parents didn’t want him in the yearbook, the teacher also said that she wanted the students portrayed a certain way.
To address the first issue, which is the release form with the student and his parents, the Student Press Law Center states that, “the ‘do not picture’ list applies to official publications of the school, and a yearbook is the work of the students, not of the school.” Meaning that legally we could publish any photo of the student that we had, because the yearbook is a student publication. However, the group and I understood the sensitivity regarding this student. Legally we knew we could publish the photo, but morally we wanted to be respectful to the student’s privacy. The group decided that this wasn’t a battle necessary to fight and decided not to feature the student on the spread.
Now the comment made by the teacher. The group and I understood that the teacher was trying to guarantee that the students featured were shown in a positive light, but it wasn’t her place to decide how the students should and should not be portrayed. Considering journalism is about documenting the truth. The group designing the spread intentionally chose photos that portrayed the students in the most “normal” way possible; in fact all of the photos were approved by the editors before the spread was checked off. Therefore the teacher’s comments, though in the student’s best interest, were disregarded.
I believe that the struggles my staff and I faced to get this content into the book was worth the trouble, because it not only taught me the sensitivity of dealing with outside adults and students, but it also taught my staffers the tough decisions journalists must make sometimes.
My entire three years on the yearbook staff we have struggled with including the self-contained, special-ed students in the book. I believe that the work and activities they do is just as important as any other athlete or club member. To guarantee these student’s coverage within this year’s book, my co-editors and I marked specific places throughout the book where we wanted to have self-contained students covered.
When the time came to cover these students in the book for the first time, the group assigned to that spread immediately ran into issues. I took photos of the self-contained students having a Christmas party, when the group went to ask the self-contained teacher names of specific students within the photo, the group was told that a specific student had a release form signed and that their parents didn’t want him in the yearbook, the teacher also said that she wanted the students portrayed a certain way.
To address the first issue, which is the release form with the student and his parents, the Student Press Law Center states that, “the ‘do not picture’ list applies to official publications of the school, and a yearbook is the work of the students, not of the school.” Meaning that legally we could publish any photo of the student that we had, because the yearbook is a student publication. However, the group and I understood the sensitivity regarding this student. Legally we knew we could publish the photo, but morally we wanted to be respectful to the student’s privacy. The group decided that this wasn’t a battle necessary to fight and decided not to feature the student on the spread.
Now the comment made by the teacher. The group and I understood that the teacher was trying to guarantee that the students featured were shown in a positive light, but it wasn’t her place to decide how the students should and should not be portrayed. Considering journalism is about documenting the truth. The group designing the spread intentionally chose photos that portrayed the students in the most “normal” way possible; in fact all of the photos were approved by the editors before the spread was checked off. Therefore the teacher’s comments, though in the student’s best interest, were disregarded.
I believe that the struggles my staff and I faced to get this content into the book was worth the trouble, because it not only taught me the sensitivity of dealing with outside adults and students, but it also taught my staffers the tough decisions journalists must make sometimes.