Law, Ethics & News Literacy
Student Journalism is a topic that is not shy to the Supreme Court. Cases like Tinker v. Des Moines have paved the way for student journalists to use their First Amendment rights while cases such as Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier have given school administrations the ability to restrict their voices. The platform I have has given me the opportunity to speak out on controversial topics, but nothing I do comes without consequences.
Law
I have done a lot of research on my rights as a student
journalist. Luckily for me, Iowa gives students like myself a
a lot of freedom when it comes to what we are able to report on.
However, there is still a large gray area when it comes to what
I can and cannot write as a student journalist.
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The New Voices Bill has been passed in 17 different states around
the country. This bill protects student’s freedom of the press by
forbidding school officials from censoring student journalists from
6th grade through high school. I created this slideshow as a
teaching assistant for a journalism class at West, which explains the rights we have as student journalist in Iowa
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My junior year, an article fell into my hands where I was not sure if I had the right to publish it. Discussing the questionable acts of a coach was a thin line for me to walk on. During this time, I
was in contact with Student Press Law Center, which is
a nonprofit company that helps student journalists like
myself know their rights and what they are allowed to
cover. The lawyers at SPLC helped me understand my
rights but also helped me think deeply about the ethics
within my journalism. Since then, I always remind
myself that just because I can legally publish a piece, does not mean that I morally should.
Click photo to see law presentation
As I have dipped my toes into the controversial world of journalism, I am able to share my experiences so that other students can know our rights and resources within Iowa.
With the new law in Iowa that requires any name changes to be verified by parents and guardians, journalists have to walk on a fine line between law and ethics. Being in a position of leadership in the newsroom, I kept myself up to date on what the law included and what it meant for the publications.
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Students at West High who would like their name to appear as something else in the yearbook or in an article are allowed to fill out a form, which is then approved by parents/guardians.
This bill also affects surveys sent out to students. While a common topic that our publications likes to cover is the mental health of students and how school impacts a students well-being. With this part of the bill in play, we are unable to survey students in this way. To combat this, we can discuss mental health as a general topic rather than collect information from surveys or interview students one-on-one.
Click photo to see law presentation
Ethics
Story Writing Ethics
I can publish this, but should I?
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It's a motto that I believe all student journalists should live by. Just because we have the facts and information, does not mean that every story needs to be on the front page of the newspaper.
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My junior year, a coach at my school was under investigation for inappropriate conversations with a graduated, but underage student. I knew this student personally, and I knew the story would be great, award-winning even. But should I publish it? Should I put this student's personal and traumatic experience out there for everyone to read? I thought back and forth on this for days. So many rumors circulated around the school and I had the ability to set the record straight, but would that have solved anything? The student showed mixed emotions on if they wanted the story published, even if their name was censored. Based on their uncertainty, I cut the story immediately. Nothing is worth making a student uncomfortable.
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A similar experience with this occurred when a teacher at my school was encouraged to exclude her opinion from her everyday lessons in class. Many students were upset with this and the Insider staff had hoped to cover it. When approached, the teacher shared that they would rather not have the situation written about. After this, I immediately scratched the article and moved on.
Ethics are more than this, more than if you should because you can. A lot of work goes into my articles, spreads, videos or podcasts, including a lot of time talking to students and staff members. At West High, it is important to us that we are reporting correct information and accurately representing events.
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To report correct information, especially for sports and events at West High, I do quite a few things. For starters, I always ask the 'dumb questions.' What is your name? What grade are you in? What weight class do you wrestle? What was the score? What day was that on? I would rather double check every small fact than have even the slightest detail wrong.
Credit Your Photographers
I, as well as many of my peers, cover dozens of events a month for West High. When you are seen at an event with a camera, you are likely to be asked to share the photos you took with athletes, parents, musicians or students in general. As much as we love to share photos with our peers and community, it can be stressful to be pressured for pictures almost immediately after an event. A small group of students are well known photographers at West High, myself included. One shared issue we all have is receiving credit for the hard work that goes into our photography.
Each time I share a folder of photos with students or adults, the first image is one of these graphics that request photo credits for the photos within the pictures. I started doing this half way through my junior year and many students joined in as well. Receiving credit for the photos that we take is very rewarding and helps us get noticed by other people in our community.
Lucy Prescott, another senior on the Wahawk Insider, and Jayna Gomez, a junior on the yearbook staff, also share the same struggle of not receiving credit for their photography.
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In the height of the winter sports season, just after fall sports ended, we were all scrolling through Instagram to see that basketball players, football players and volleyball players were posting photos taken by students on staff but were not crediting their photographers.
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Following this issue, Lucy wrote an article talking about the hard work that it takes for photographers to shoot, upload, sort, edit and share pictures in the short period of time that is often demanded of them.
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For a struggle that we all face, Lucy took it upon herself to share her perspective and emotions with the public.
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To read Lucy's article, click the photo to open a link.
Publication Errors
Making an error in any publication is embarrassing, but we have all been there. While we wish they never happened, there is almost always something that will fall through the cracks and get passed editors.
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For print errors, such as the "(swimmer name)" under this photo that was printed in the quarter two magazine, we are unable to fix the problem. In cases like these, they become lessons we can teach ourselves, and be the reason for change.
For our quarter two magazine, our publication was delayed due to a printing error. While there was no error in our magazine, information that we included in an article was outdated due to a change in a bill that had been put on pause. Because of this, we added inserts to each magazine with the updated information on the bill.
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For yearbook, spotting errors in printed books pushed us to grow our editorial board. More eyes on each spread increases the chances that we will catch errors before the book is sent to print.
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For online pieces, we are able to make changes to articles through our SNO site. While our errors are small and far apart, this is a helpful tool and often will stick with reporters so they avoid the same mistakes in the future.
News Literacy
Photo by Jared Smith
At the school board meeting in November, both the Wahawk Insider staff and the yearbook staff were able to share the awards we had won at the IHSPA conference as well as the new additions to each program.
Click photo to see presentation
Another big way that I help my school stay informed on news literacy and journalism is by being a Teacher's Assistant. I TA for Ms. Goodman’s Journalism class, and have done so for the last two semesters. As a TA, I help students who are struggling with assignments by explaining them again or giving them advice as someone who has already taken the class. This is benefitting the students in my school because sometimes it helps to have someone your age help you learn, we all learn in different ways. This Journalism course is viewed as a foundational class for students who then want to go on and join the yearbook or online publications class. By helping students master the skills in this class, I can help create a solid foundation for our publications.
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On top of helping my peers, I also help Ms. Goodman brainstorm unique ideas to engage her students. As a student who has previously taken the class, it is easy for me to share what assignments interested me and which ones were harder for me to enjoy.
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Photo by Nicole Goodman
The position I have allows me to educate others on the steps that I have taken to get to where I am and assist in the growth of other journalists and publication programs.
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Following being named Iowa's High School Journalist of the Year, I met with the Courier and was able to talk about how I went from a staff member to the Editor-In-Chief and how I have helped grow the publications. Being able to share my story with others will inspire younger journalists to grow their platform.
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Our awards also pushed East High, the other high school in our district, to create a news publication of their own, something that the West High program is excited to be a part of.
Photo by Nicole Goodman
Everyone at my school knows me as 'The girl in yearbook' or 'The girl on Insider,' everyone knows that journalism is my thing. Because of the platform I have been given, I am able to teach others around me everything that I know. I know, very well, that not everyone is interested in student journalism, photography or yearbook. But there are people who are interested.
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To keep people in my community educated, I must also keep myself educated on the world of student journalism that is always changing. I have attended the IHSPA conference each year since I was a sophomore, where I take classes that keep student journalists up to date on the newest laws and information given to us. On top of this, following other school
newspapers in Iowa and across the country can help me stay informed on trends
in media, changing laws and all around keeps me up to date on things I could be
missing.
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A big way that I keep my community informed is by attending the school board
meetings for the Waterloo Community School District. By attending these
meetings, I am not only keeping myself informed on what is going on within my
school district, but I am able to inform others on what the Wahawk Yearbook
and Wahawk Insider are achieving. At these meetings, I get to talk about
the changes in our programs, how we are working towards different goals and
how we are creating changes in our community. In this picture, myself as well as part of the Wahawk Insider staff and yearbook staff went to the school board meeting to discuss the awards that we won at the IHSPA Conference in October. This was the first year in over a decade that the Wahawks brought home awards within our Journalism program.
Strong Journalism
In each strong journalist, there are key morals we must follow to report reliably, truthfully and respectfully.
To be a reliable journalist, it is important to report factual and researched information. In my 'Let's Talk About Perry' article, I discuss the responses from political candidates on the shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. While I found the responses in various articles such as the New York Times, I looked into the sources myself and found the posts directly on X. People who are reading the pieces we publish are entrusting us to report with factual evidence, we build trust with our viewers and to keep that trust, we must be honest with our reporting.
While a lot of what I write comes from strong emotions I hold, it is important that in my writing, excluding opinion, I am an unbiased and third party source. In articles such as "WE CAN’T HEAR YOU: Where Did The Student Section Go?," despite my own opinion towards the situation, the article is kept as a feature and discusses the lack of the student section through the opinion of others.
With quotes from not only students who represent the student section, but as well as an administrative point of view, the article remains unbiased, but still sends a message through the emotions of others.