In the ongoing saga that is the battle over Stevenson High (IL) journalism program, The Daily Herald recently editorially called for an intervention session. An IEP of sorts to plan protocols to heal the damaged relationship between school and students.

The online Merriam-Webster definition of a protocol: a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence or a set of conventions governing the treatment  of data in an online communications system. I like process instead, but the definition is not the key.

Its substance is.

Such a protocol is, and has been, the goal of Illinois Journalism Education Association (JEA) state director Randy Swikle, the McCormick Freedom Project and the Illinois Press Foundation. In fact, a conference to attempt such protocols is planned for February.

Assuming the conference can succeed at what many, many others have tried (and we do want it to succeed for all journalism programs facing censorship) what would you see as the core  items in a protocol? If you and your students face censorship or prior review, what is the key concept or principle or action you think ought to be at the heart of a workable protocol? If you are review free, what is the core of that freedom others need to know about?

For me, such a protocol would have to answer key questions:
• How do we commonly define responsibility, as in free and responsible journalism?
• Whether we can reach an understanding on prior review and why it has no valid educational purpose
• Can we convince all involved that journalistic values match and precisely serve the best of a system’s educational mission statements?
• The words civility or respect are often bandied about. Can all sides really respect each other’s positions?

We would love to hear from you and how you envision a protocol that enables all parties to work out a sound educational solution.

As more student media embrace what some call the “fifth estate” – new and social media – as part of their way to keep their audiences informed, student journalists may think they need new legal and ethical guidelines.

Will existing guidelines, the heart of the fourth estate,  still have a role? Will new hardware and equipment demand new ethics? What will we create as crossover standards? What will silently slip away?

Into that framework must come a discussion of ethics in the online world of scholastic media.

One only need look at scholastic media cases like Layshock and Doninger to see the need. Will we embrace the new and adapt the old, paraphrasing Simon and Garfunkle, and be journalists who “hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest?”

It’s the best of the rest we want to look at here, and in several upcoming posts, empower an open discussion on online ethics forscholastic journalism.

In general, then, this discussion will look at several general points, starting with the Online Discussion page.

Links below, and there, will take you to the following pages:

• Online ethics discussion
• Information gathering considerations
• Promotion of work
• Fairness and transparency.

In these rounds of discussion we are not looking for answers; those we hope come later, with you involved.

We want input and questions.

So, over the next several days, please join us in a discussion about ethics in the online world. How do you think ethics will shape it? React to what is posted, follow the links; talk about your experiences in these areas. Add something new.

Turkeys in the news tomorrow may not be just on people’s plates.

Lately, some have been dressed as administrators at Stevenson High in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

First, school officials’ objections held up the paper’s initial release. Then they forced journalism students to remove  several stories and several pages from the latest issue.

Next, administrators demanded the issue run despite student objections. According to information in the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune, administrators wouldn’t allow students to remove their bylines from the stories and threatened to fail the student journalists if they did not do as told.

Prior review, administrators said last year when a previous dispute occurred, would only last a short time.

They were right about one thing. Review is now prior restraint of the least educationally defensible kind.

Executive director of the Student Press Law center, Frank LoMonte, called administrative actions a confession that they had lied.

“Stevenson’s conduct today is a confession that its administrators lied when they claimed in a press release last week that they had problems with only one story in the Statesman,” he said. “We trust that the school board will immediately investigate the source of this intentionally false public statement and will remove any employee who played a role in distributing it.

LoMonte also praised student editors.

“Student editors have dealt with Stevenson in an honest, professional and restrained manner, attempting to work out a peaceful resolution. Their reward for it was a sucker-punch in the gut. To threaten the highest-achieving students in the school with flunking journalism, potentially endangering their college careers, simply confirms that Stevenson puts its image ahead of the well-being of its students. When a school tries this hard to silence student journalism, the public should start asking hard questions about what is going on at Stevenson High School that its administrators are so desperate to conceal.”

This Thanksgiving the communities that send their students to Stevenson definitely may want to be thinking of ways to deal with these leftover turkeys.

For related reporting and coverage, go here, here, here and here.

They just keep on coming.

Stevenson High. Timberland High. Stow-Munroe Falls High. Boonville High and others too numerous to list.

And those are just some we know about.

But there are countless others — the smaller, lesser known stories you hear about at workshops like the recent JEA/NSAP convention in DC.

• Like the Virginia  student journalist who needed suggestions on how to work with a principal about prior review because the principal offered no justification for censoring topics administrators considered negative to the school.

• Like the Michigan school who wanted guidelines on how to report controversial issues so they could remain review-free.

• Like the student who would not say what state she was from, just that she was from the Bible Belt. She sought help on how to report on her principal being “under persecution” because of discussion of Christian issues

• Like the South Carolina student journalist trying to understand why her conservative community was upset about the reporting on a pregnant teen.

Each of these instances deserves our attention as much as the larger, more publicized instances.

To help journalism teachers and advisers, we need to know when to offer our help and why. It is much harder to assist these students, advisers and parents if we don’t know the issues and the ways we can help.

If your student media face censorship or prior review, please let us know so we can act to support in ways you feel best for your situation.

Here are some ways:

• Report the issue to the Student Press Law Center .

• Complete a censorship report by going to The Center for Scholastic Journalism to report censorship or prior review, and fill out the forms.

• If the adviser is a member of JEA, activate the organization’s Adviser Assistance Program by contacting your state JEA representative, your regional director or JEA headquarters. You can get that information from the JEA Web site.

• Leave a comment on this blog. A member of JEA’s press rights commission or members of the other commissions (certification, curriculum, multi-cultural or middle school) will get back to you.

Help us know who needs assistance and attention from the most well-known to the smallest issue.

We know there are a significant number of open forum student media out there, and we’d like to see you apply for JEA’s First Amendment Press Freedom Award (FAPFA).

Being an open forum for student expression, besides having exceptional educational validity and offering excellent learning opportunities for students, also can help protect a school system in cases of liability.

If you think your student media are forums, by policy or practice, then go here and download the application form for FAPFA. Application for the honor comes in two parts: the initial application of 25 questions for a media adviser and an administrator. Those meeting the criteria for the award will then receive a second application to be filled out by the principal, all student media editors and advisers. Deadline for applying is Dec. 1, 2009. Those meeting the final criteria will be recognized at the JEA/NSPA convention in Portland.

Good luck!

JEA members using the listserv this week were making a list of important scholastic media court cases. That list, or one like it, is on the Court cases page (see link at the top right of this page) – and with links to information about those cases.

We hope you will find these cases and links to them useful We also hope you will suggest other cases and links you found useful.

Budget concerns are causing schools all over the country to cut one of the programs where students learn the most, journalism.   Isn’t learning by students the primary goal of schools?   Students in publication classes learn not only writing skills, they learn to work as a team to produce a publication. They learn to work with deadlines and budgets. They sell ads. They learn computer skills.  These are sellable skills in anyone’s mind. Running a student controlled publication is like running a small business.

When they are given the freedom to do make the content decisions, they learn critical thinking skills that will help them no matter what career they choose.

Students who are given the opportunity to do investigative reporting on subjects of interest to their readers learn the most. Let’s face it, research for most papers in other English classes is done on the Internet these days. Reporters for a publication talk to people instead because they have to localize their research. Interviewing people about subjects they may not really want to talk about is a skill taught nowhere else. Preparing good questions, taking good notes, plus thinking up new questions when answers lead to other directions, teaches students invaluable skills. Researching legalities is a whole other blog.

We need to fight to keep these valuable classes alive by reminding administrators about what students learn there. Learning the most possible is what schools should be all about.

Fern Valentine, MJE

Two articles today could be great ways to end your j-class – or spark discussion at the beginning of fall’s.

One, about MySpace and online speech cases in Pennsylvania, looks at the problems judges are having with free expression issues outside of school.

The other, from Washington state, raises the issues of how best to report an incident at a high school.

Great topics for discussion.