Law & Ethics/News Literacy
I have begun and grown through journalism in awe and admiration of the rights journalists have and the impact our job of presenting the truth to the public has. I love how I don't have to listen when people complain about certain content making people uncomfortable or making the school look bad, but understanding the laws I am protected by. Learning about the court cases (my favorite being Tinker vs. Desmoines) that protect students' first amendment rights in honors journalism freshman year was one of my favorite parts of the class, and the part I remember the most about it. Utilizing the laws that protect my free speech while being ethical in the angles we take on certain stories and what we choose to publish has driven my 'career' in journalism so far.
South culture story process
The article I have been working on for the past several months explained further on the "News Gathering" page has been read through by the SPLC (and will be again as we complete our final draft) and we have worked hard to get responses from both sides of the story so it is balanced and not slanted. We also are making sure to avoid libel by getting responses from sources who others made comments about on the record (such as when a retired teacher said the principal is unfair in evaluations, or parents have said administrators talk over students' voices more than previous ones), and not printing an example a source gives without getting comments and perspectives from everyone involved in the incident. We have retrieved surveys via FOIA request when the district did not want to give them to us as well, and conducted several uncomfortable, difficult, yet professional interviews with a vast number of sources.
GPPSS lawsuit story process
I had the news story I wrote on the lawsuit filed against our district (explained further on the "News Gathering" page) read through by the SPLC as well to avoid libel and slanting the story. I went to the court to obtain the official documents, and read through and chose which information from both sides and the judge's statement was important in order to put together a summary of the case and decision. We were ethical in choosing not to write about this intriguing topic earlier (until last summer) so the article would in no way affect the case that was still being decided upon, as the SPLC advised.
Relationship with South administration
As explained on the "Leadership/Team Building" page, the relationship between The Tower and our school's administration has fluctuated, but never has been exemplary or trusting. Our principal is quick to try to catch us in a mistake and is fearful when we publish content that does not make the school look good. The Tower has had to fight back and try to educate him about our right as journalists to do this. Our administration is on our backs about small factual errors, would be eager to censor some of our content if they could and even have come and corrected small grammatical errors and design technique. We fact check our stories thoroughly, ensure all graphic images follow FERPA (we had a problem with publishing a screenshot that included school emails last year) and accurately depict what we are writing about and read over each page every week more than five times per page after it is finished and each story has been edited by at least three people (myself, one of the two supervising copy editors and the initial copy editor). Our relationship with our administration-- along with our journalistic integrity overall-- has made us extraordinarily careful and educated about what we print and the laws that protect us as student journalists.
'Looking Glass' student publication investigative article
I love discovering and sharing the truth, especially when most people don't know about it or administration doesn't want a lot of people to know. However, sometimes I do realize it is best not to publish certain information because of the effect it will have on the community. For example, at the beginning of the year, I began to look into why the previous adviser of our creative writing student publication, the Looking Glass, had stepped down at the end of last year, because I had heard from graduated members of the publication that she had been forced to by administration at our school. I talked to the current and previous Editor in Chief of the publication, and reached out to the possible new adviser and did find out from last year's Editor in Chief that the previous adviser, had been asked by administration to step down because of a letter a parent sent to our district's board of education complaining about the explicit content of a poem a student published in the Looking Glass. After speaking with the previous adviser, we decided publishing the story was not going to help anything, but only make her life more difficult because that is who administration would take it out on, and would not do anything to help-- the issue was already decided, had already been fought over more than I had realized, and at that point it was more ethical not to publish using that angle. Later in the year, we wrote a news story about how the adviser had changed and when the meetings were, etc., but did not go in depth on the topic because it was not a battle we were going to win, and would only hurt the teacher in the end instead of helping at all.
Marijuana in the school bathroom incident
Last year there was an incident at the end of the year where four girls were caught for hitting an oil pen (a way of using marijuana) in the school bathrooms, and one was taken to jail. I investigated the piece right away. I talked to two of the girls who were caught, one of the girls who was in the group chat but was not at school when the incident occurred and our principal about it. I got a lot on the record, and had more interviews set up. However, I and my adviser questioned the newsworthiness of this story. First of all, who would it help? What would the impact of the article be? It would inform people about what happened, but overall it was a small incident that would eventually be forgotten, and wouldn't help many people, it would just attach all of the girls' names to an article and incident that could then follow them around for teh rest of their lives. Also, one of the girls who was caught had an athletic scholarship that was threatened by the incident, and publishing the article would hurt her future as well. We decided in the end not to publish the story, despite the information and work we had done, because it was more ethical not to do so.