LAW, ETHICS & NEWS LITERACY
As a journalist, I recognize the importance of journalism laws, media ethics and news literacy. I work as hard as I can to both teach these ideas and demonstrate how to exemplify these values to my staffers.
The night before, a teacher messaged me, making me aware that school would soon be cancelled, teachers across the district all called out sick. The moment I heard, I knew it was a story I needed to get on. While others spent the day off sledding or relaxing, I spent hours capturing the story over the thousands of community members protesting decisions made by the school board in below-freezing temperatures.
Following the teacher sick-out and community protest, students organized an in-school walkout. I willingly missed class to follow the protestors, take photos and interview them, sharing their story. For both of these articles, I exercised my First Amendment rights by reporting on and covering such controversial topics and helping others share their voices and opinions.
Part of our class curriculum is understanding laws that affect us as student journalists. We keep posters of the First Amendment hung up in the classroom at all times.
Because we are a public school in Colorado, the Rock Online is protected by student journalist laws, such as Colorado Student Freedom of Expression Law (Colo. Rev. Stat. 22-1-120). For example, we utilize these protections when we write opinion, review and editorial pieces.
Per Colorado law, our adviser does not determine the content published on our platforms--I and other editors do. We do not do any form of prior review. Part of my job includes editing copy, and when doing so, I make sure students understand that they cannot editorialize or write expressions that are obscene, libelous, slanderous, false or create danger./disturb the school, as none of those are protected by law.
This teaching goes hand-in-hand with the news literacy lessons we've done. As a class, my adviser and I regularly take the class through articles and reporting done by other news and student news outlets as we practice how to separate facts from opinions, include sources, etc.
Ethically, we operate by following our saying "just because we can doesn't mean we should."
This applies to a variety of situations. For example, we've held back photos of Wish Week event planning to help Student Council keep the kid's identity secret and maintain a good relationship with the council, and we respect privacy when appropriate.
Our About page includes information on our policies on covering controversies
Editorial Policy
Editorials, Letters to the Editor and Corrections
Covering Controversy
The Role of the Adviser
The Rock Online runs as a public forum, including any and all voices and allowing viewers to comment, vote on polls, and overall express themselves. We have Google Form options that I created and regularity check on our Contact Page, allowing community members to submit coverage suggestions, letters to the editors, corrections and more. Although there are sometimes negative comments or beliefs I disagree with, viewers have the right to their own opinions and to express these opinions.
During my time as Editor-in-Chief, we have received multiple awards for our exercising of our First Amendment and student journalist rights.
The Rock Online was the inaugural winner of Youth Journalism International's First Amendment Award. Here's what they had to say in their article:
"A new First Amendment Award, cosponsored by YJI and the First Amendment Museum in Augusta, Maine, went to The Rock, the student newspaper at Rock Canyon High School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. The Rock’s staff took full advantage of the law to write about tough issues that included the firing of a superintendent and the resulting protests by teachers and students. Determined to 'take full advantage of the right we are given to deliver comprehensive coverage to our audience,' The Rock plunged into the news about the firing of a school superintendent and the resulting protests by teachers and students. It didn’t shy away from a tough issue and it kept its focus on the issue at hand, providing solid reporting not just for its high school but for its entire community. And that’s just one issue of many where The Rock seized the opportunity a free press offers to dig deep and stretch wide."
As of February of this year, I was the student editor selected to meet with school administrators to fill out the National Student Press Association's First Amendment Press Freedom Award application, which we received last year after I submitted the application. We just found out that we received it again this year!