This week, at the JEA/NSPA convention in Portland, the press rights commission has taken several initiatives:

• Involving, for the first time 45words, its student partners group
• Designing a working definition of prior review and prior restraint of scholastic media
• Participating in a Skype discussion with a lawyer about a Washington State case that might involve the future of the open forum concept.

In a meeting today, the commission will look at new projects and initiatives, which will most likely start with:
• Developing a series of FAQs to go with the prior review definition to help advisers and others understanding the workings of that definition
• Beginning discussion on a Webinar involving 45words students and others in outreach and action plans that would educate communities about the dangers and educational consequences of prior review and restraint.

But we would like to have your input: What would you like to see the commission, JEA and other scholastic journalism groups examine in terms of legal and ethical issues that would most help you and your journalism programs and communities?

We would love to hear from you so we can sharpen our vision of how best to serve the interests of all involved with scholastic journalism.

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.

Sometimes it’s hard to know whom to believe.

You hear a colleague talk about her students making all the content decisions, and then you have her kids in a workshop….and that’s not the way they tell it. You think you know who did all the work on that fantastic layout….and then someone tells you what went on behind the scenes. Or horror stories circulate about some nasty administrator….and then you learn what he says the student journalists did or didn’t do.

That said, let’s be clear this has NOTHING to do with any specific situation, past or present. It’s an accumulation of situations over the years, and it isn’t aimed at anyone or anything.

This is simply a reminder that just about every story has more than one side. In fact, it may have lots and lots of sides, and hearing only one of them may not be enough. Don’t jump to conclusions. The first version you get may not be the closest to reality, and it may take hearing a variety of viewpoints, weighing them carefully, before you can reach your own conclusion.

After all, good journalists want balanced information. They need to know what he said and she said and they said in an attempt to find the truth.

Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE

As my colleague and good friend Jan Leach keeps rightfully reminding me, the toughest choices we make are about questions of right versus right.

That thought is also at the core of an online ethics course for scholastic and collegiate media teachers I teach for the first time this fall.

And I wonder if it is also at the core of trying to bridge what seems to be a growing gap between media advisers and school administrators.

Illinois journalism adviser Randy Swikle said it well many times: on what can We Agree?

To me, the core principles we should be able to agree on include accuracy, completeness, transparency and honesty, all in pursuit of truth. To achieve those I would add the educational values of critical thinking, decision-making, responsibility and civic engagement.

I am sure there are more we might have in common or might be able to agree upon.

What do you think?

What would you add? Share your thoughts below. It might make a difference.

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.

In the ongoing discussion on the Obama education speech, one JEA member suggested the press provided too much of a platform for fringe opinions instead of balanced reporting.

While that may be, I’d like to suggest something H. L. Hall always stresses as important: digging.

All too often, in commercial media and in scholastic media we see too much surface reporting and not enough digging for background and perspective. Digging would add substantial answers to the why and the how elements of news.

Frankly, there has been just too little of this type of reporting lately – in commercial and scholastic media.

So, let’s see what scholastic media can show everyone: how to really report the Obama speech story like no one else can.

Let’s see some digging:

• Why would schools back off running the President’s speech?

• Why would parents oppose (or support) their children hearing it?

• Who (if anyone) has used the Internet and other communication to spread lies/truth about the speech’s purpose? How can the audience tell?

• What does this say (if anything) about schools’ willingness to provide a chance for students to ask questions? Has this been an ongoing process? What is the historical perspective?

• What does the furor around this speech say about a school’s willingness to trust its students to think critically? Do school officials even see this as a factor? If not a factor, what drove their decision, one way or another?

• What does a school’s reaction (or a community’s reaction) in this instance say about their willingness to confront challenges from any future viewpoint?

Can scholastic media reporters find sources —  and maybe even answers — for these questions?

You betcha.

If they dig.

Which brings up another point H.L. likes to raise: Credibility. If we – commercial or scholastic media – do not show people we still can dig for answers, verify information and synthesize it into meaningful reporting, we cannot complain when people challenge our credibility.

We have it damaged it ourselves.