First Amendment video

By Stetson Miller, Jenna Spoont, Brittany Roker and Abby Pioch.

Students recite the First Amendment, and Stetson Miller speaks about its importance to student journalists.
First Amendment video

Key terms

By Haley Xue

Key journalism terms

By Shwetha Sudhakar

Op/ed: Press rights here & abroad

By Allison Kozeracki

The right to write, at home and abroad

In recent months, WikiLeaks has garnered worldwide attention for making classified government documents available to the public. While WikiLeaks has received praise along with criticism, the controversy brought to question the people’s right to information and the role the media plays in delivering it to them.

Naturally, freedoms of speech and of the press vary by country. For this reason, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) annually compiles and publishes a worldwide Press Freedom Index. RWB, an international organization that advocates freedom of the press, assesses attacks on journalists and other forms of pressure against the free press. Using the information, RWB is able to rank countries from the least press freedom (highest scores) to the most press freedom (lowest scores).

Out of 178 countries, the one ranked at the very bottom of the 2010 index is Eritrea. With a score of 150,000, Eritrea is the only African country without any privately owned news media. In 2001, the government closed the private press for “endangering national security” and arrested several journalists for publishing unfavorable views of National Assembly members.

With strict censorship and persecution of journalists, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Burma and Syria, are not far behind on the list. Hundreds of murders of Russian journalists remain unsolved.

Although the People’s Republic of China has loosened its restrictions on the media since the rule of Chairman Mao, it still keeps journalists on a tight leash. Chinese journalists are to complete six-month training courses to learn to “eradicate false news, improve the feeling of social responsibility and reinforce journalistic ethics.” The imprisonment of human rights activist Liu Xiabo has also tarnished China’s image. China was ranked 171st on the Press Freedom Index.                                                                At the other end of the spectrum, Northern European countries consistently rank at the top of the index. This year, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are tied for first. These countries have all made efforts to respect journalists and protect them from judicial abuse.         

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any law abridging the freedom of the press. While it cannot guarantee the same rights to journalists in other countries, it’s up to all American student journalists to make sure their rights are being fully protected.

To see the complete Press Freedom Index, visit www.rsf.org.



Op/ed about the importance of the First Amendment

By Lavi Ben-Dor

You’ve got rights, too!

As Scholastic Journalism Week approached, I found myself thinking more and more about that law that we hold so dearly—the First Amendment. Although the language is tedious, it states, among other things, that all of us have the right to say what we want to say…and write what we want to write. That includes you, me, and every other student (as well as adults) in the nation.

Although these two laws have been challenged often, as courts are forced to further define them, all of us should appreciate the freedom they give us.

I recently heard about the book “Hero Type” by Barry Lyga. The book’s central character, Kevin Ross, becomes a hero overnight when he saves one of his peers from a serial killer. However, his popularity plummets—when he is caught taking “Support Our Troops” magnets off his car. He then launches a campaign to argue in defense of the freedom of speech, challenging others and the reader to consider why we say the Pledge of Allegiance or pin “Support the Troops” stickers to our lockers, backpacks, or cars.

Although many of us have been fortunate to avoid such an uproar, the book teaches us an important lesson—we have the right to express our beliefs as we wish, even if it means not wearing a pro-army pin even though we are patriots. And it made us think and realize that free speech is not something we can dismiss lightly.

The current protests in Egypt remind us how lucky we are to have the First Amendment. The current regime has often cracked down on and imprisoned reporters during election season to avoid the exposure of its corruption. And even now, with access to sites such as Twitter and Facebook limited and journalists attacked by the government, the government is attempting to pull a veil over the nation and limit the amount of information the rest of the world can see.

Another prominent issue on the table is the extremely controversial WikiLeaks, bringing up a bucket load of moral, ethical, and journalistic dilemmas: Should the group continue releasing information? Should we have the right to see government cables? And what does this reveal about the American government? This shows us that the U.S. must work further to uphold the First Amendment and all that it promises us. Julian Assange and his assistants teach us to value the freedom of speech and fight for it.

Students can also learn much from the Tinker v. Des Moines School District case. In 1969, the parents of two students, who wore black armbands in support of ending the Vietnam War but were suspended after refusing to take them off, sued the district and won. This monumental case established the fact that students still have their constitutional rights, even the freedom of expression, at school, and do not “leave their rights at the schoolhouse door.”

All of us can celebrate the First Amendment and all it gives us, even if we’re not student journalists or even slightly interested in newspapers. Because after all, all students the right to speak and write down their thoughts, opinions, and beliefs. Even you.

Student journalists under the law

By Neel Thakur
Guidelines for student journalists PDF on Google Docs

SJW poster

By Natalie West
PDF available at on Google Docs

Letter to the editor--importance of scholastic journalism

By Claire Moran

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (First Amendment).

These forty- five words represent the basic freedoms of everyone, but represent much more than that for student journalists like myself.  For us, they represent our freedom to say and write what we want and our responsibility to say and write what we must. 

For me, they represent the countless students who have gone before me to pave the way for my own freedom of speech.  Whether it be those brave students from Iowa who proved that we have the right to speak and wear what we like within reasonable bounds or it be the editors of my own paper who waged their own censorship fight against the district just a few years ago, these pioneers have taught me to appreciate the importance of these words and the rights they represent. 

As a journalist, it is my duty to report what I think the people need to know and without the words of the First Amendment, I would not have the freedom or ability to do my duty.  However, with this duty comes a sense of responsibility that my experience as a student journalist has taught me.  We, as journalists, must follow the normal ethics codes and laws that apply to professional journalism as well as the guidelines and rules in place for student journalists.  Our writing must be both ethical AND appropriate for our age group. 

My experience as a student journalist has given me an invaluable sense of responsibility, ethics, and hard work.  The sense of hard work that The Spoke has given me will carry me throughout my life and will help me in fields other than journalism.  I have learned time management and, of course, how to write.  My experiences on The Spoke have given me skills that I will need for the rest of my life.  More important than that, however, is my sense of pride in my work.  However vain it may sound, seeing my name written in the byline of a newspaper that is shipped around my community and my school gives me a sense of pride and responsibility for my work. 

I’ll admit that at times the frustrations involved in journalism can cause me a lot of stress.  For example, when a potential interviewee refuses to respond to my repeated emails or when I can’t seem to be able to come up with a good transition between two quotes, I forget my reasons for being on The Spoke.  In the end, however, the numerous benefits of student journalism win out.

Sincerely,

Claire Moran

Wayne

SJW poster

By Maddie Amsterdam. Original PDF available at on Google Docs

Wikileaks overview

By Emily Omrod and Tracy Cook
Wikileaks summary and "Spokileaks" at the end for class discussion.

Wikileaks ethics

By Emily Seeburger
Wikileaks overview, with questions about ethics for students.

International press rights

By Kelly Benning and Sophia Ponte
PowerPoint about press rights in the US as compared to Russia and China.

Ethics in journalism

By Patrick Nicholson

Ethics in Journalism

Finding the Truth

It is important to verify all facts presented in an article.  Yet, upholding this idea involves more than just using reliable sources and recording interviews.  The following are a few things to remember in regards to sticking with the truth:

 

-          Seek out all people mentioned in your news story, to give them an opportunity to respond to any allegations or statements made by other sources.  This goes along with the idea of investigating both sides of an argument, and helps reporters avoid misrepresentation of an event.

-          Avoid undercover methods of obtaining information unless tradition methods will not yield important information to the public.  Use of such methods should be noted in the story.

-          Make sure that news teases and headlines do not misrepresent the story, but rather are non-opinionated or represent the views of the sources.

-          Grant anonymity if requested by sources, but note the motives for the source’s decision to remain unaccredited.  It could lead to a new side to the story.

-          Do not edit video clips or pictures so that they misrepresent the story or source.  But remember that image enhancement for technical clarity is always acceptable.

Privacy

When pursuing an interesting story, journalists may need to dig deeper than normal for the vital information.  What every reporter needs to remember in such situations is that there is a fine line between finding information the public needs to know and invading someone’s privacy.  Here are a few tips:

-          Private or embarrassing facts that are irrelevant to the story should never be disclosed to the public, even if they may be interesting to the public.

-          A reporter is not entitled to invade on someone’s seclusion or solitude.  As in any other interview, a source must grant the reporter’s request for an interview before questions are asked and recorded.  This is especially important if the source just experienced a traumatizing or depressing event.

-          Remember that as a journalist, you are provided the public with information that will help them make good decisions or further their understanding of a situation.  The title of reporter does not give you a license to gossip.

Main Idea

When dealing with all natures of stories, the goal is to give the people a full, truthful, and interesting story.  But remember that you should never override a person’s privacy or your own integrity in order to do this.

Works Cited:

Journalism Ethics: Privacy." The University of Iowa. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. <http://www.uiowa.edu/~c019168/168s6online15.html>.

"SPJ Code of Ethics." Society of Professional Journalists. 1996. Web. <http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp>.

SJW project overview

My reporters were assigned this project on February 1, and had two and a half class periods [43 minutes each] to work on their chosen project this week. This blog is intended to showcase their final product; more content will be added at the end of SJW when some students present their projects live [i.e. songs, raps, etc]

The project outline was posted to my press rights group's blog [45words], the PSPA homepage and sent to the JEA listserv. For the original assignment, please visit http://www.45words.org/?p=109.

For more information about SJW, go to http://jea.org/resources/jweek/index.html