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By acting as an open fourm, both in policy and practice, we have an extra layer of protection against censorship.
ETHICS & NEWS LITERACY
The National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) code of ethics lists seven main principles for student journalists to follow.
Be Responsible.
Be Fair.
Be Honest.
Be Accurate.
Be Independent.
Minimize Harm.
Be Accountable.
Additionally, these are the four pillars of journalistic ethics according to the Society for Professional Journalism
Seek truth and report it.
Minimize harm.
Act independently.
Be accountable and transparent.
Here are some things we do as a publication to uphold these standards.
Permission to Record
When I teach new staffers how to interview, I always remind them to ask for permission to record audio. From a legal standpoint, Virginia has one-party consent jurisdiction, meaning anyone can legally record a conversation as long as at least one party partaking in that conversation consents. However, that is still not ethically correct. As such, if someone says they would not like to be recorded, we won't.
On slide 10, we list out the questions every staffer should have for an interview, the first of which is permission to record.
Quote Confirmations
I do not do quote confirmations for every article I write—it would be impossible for some stories to be published in a timely manner and an ineffective use of both my and the interviewee's time. However, there are times when confirming quotes prior to publication is necessary to uphold the NSPA code of ethics—specifically the principle to "be fair."
This was my email to the principal, Dr. Bonitatibus.
This was my email to Dr. Smith.
When I wrote an article about excessive cheating within our school, my co-writer Keertana and I sent out quote confirmations to every person we interviewed in this article. We did not send out the full article, but did make some changes to the draft based on the interviewee's reply.
For example, Dr. Smith suggested adding to the second quote to clarify that he saw that in college, not at high school. We made this change in the final piece.
As I wrote earlier, I do not send out the full article if someone requests to read it. However, in certain circumstances I will send the paragraph leading up to the quote. In this situation, the quote the interviewee wanted to retract was used to establish that students will often not report others they catch cheating on tests. After providing the context of the story, we made the change that Ms. Hamblin requested, as it was a reasonable request and still upheld the meaning of her quote.
Approving Comments
We typically approve all comments that are left on the tjTODAY website. However, there are times when the comments are inappropriate and will cause harm.
This was a comment left on a news brief I wrote this school year. After a quick conversation with my co-EIC and advisor, we were in agreement—this comment was inappropriate and would not uphold the principle of "minimize harm" that is listed in the NSPA code of ethics. As such, we would not approve it.
This comment is the only other instance where I chose not to approve it. Because it was a threat, this would also not uphold the principle of "minimize harm."
Legality & Avoiding Anonymity
I was taught to avoid anonymity in articles unless the individual being named would bring harm upon them, whether that be legal, physical or societal. The NSPA Code of Ethics states that we should "determine if full disclosure of information may jeopardize student welfare unnecessarily." When there are instances where a person fears being quoted will result in legal consequences, I do my best to find alternative ways of telling the same story.
TJ Bets was a group of students, mostly seniors, at our school who were playing virtual poker in class and betting real money—they kept track of everything in a spreadsheet, with some individuals gaining and losing hundreds of dollars. This was a growing issue as more and more students were not paying attention in class, focused instead on a virtual card game.
In Virginia, gambling under the age of 21 is illegal. If someone is caught, they face a disorderly persons offense, meaning their criminal charge will become part of their criminal record.
Rather than write an investigative feature on TJ Bets, which would have resulted in only anonymous interviews, we decided to tell the story as a lead editorial. We still triple-checked our facts and verified information, but we avoided publishing a fully anonymous story this way. It was still an effective piece that delves into the heart of the matter, but the way we chose to publish minimized the harm done to students.
In a similar vein, I could not quote a person explaining why they cheated on tests, because that would directly imply that they have cheated on tests. As good as quotes speculating the reasons why students cheat were, I wanted to get down to the heart of the problem and communicate with people who were cheating.
Instead, we sent out an anonymous Google Form that asked students to state whether they had cheated before and their reasons why. I also asked whether the responder had seen a student cheat and chose not to report. The data was then used in the story to establish the reasons why students cheat.
Teaching New Staffers
I make a point to introduce the importance of ethics to the new staffers as a part of their training to become staff writers.
These are slides created by a yearbook editor that I reviewed with the tjTODAY staff, as well.
During class this year, we watched the video below made by former TJ Media advisor Ms. Harris, and everyone took notes. My filled-in in notes are the document below to the right.
COUNTY POLICY & VIRGINIA LAW
Relationship with Administration
For the first three years of my time on tjTODAY, we had a strong relationship with the principal, Dr. Bonitatibus, who trusted our publication and did not invoke prior review. We had monthly press conferences where Dr. Bonitatibus would come in and the staff asked for her comments on any stories they were working on. This on top of our one-on-one monthly interviews for my beat (for three years, I was on Dr. Bonitatibus's beat, interviewing and writing articles about administration once a month) fostered a symbiotic relationship that I took for granted.
In October, Dr. Bonitaitbus announced she would be leaving Jefferson, and we would have a new principal. My advisor, Ms. Hampton, brought up the possibility of having prior review under new leadership. Curious, I looked up the Virginia law surrounding student press rights and Fairfax County Public Schools policy. Much to my dismay, I learned of the lack of legal support that student journalists have in Virginia, specifically at the high school level.
Virginia has protections in place for student journalists in higher education, but not at the high school level.
We are fortunate in that our new principal, Mr. Mukai, is a huge supporter of student press rights and freedoms. Here he is pictured during our first press conference of, hopefully, many, on Feb. 14.
While it worked out for us, luck should not be the deciding factor between censorship and freedom.
Current Law & Policy
The can of worms had been tipped over and I couldn't forget about the fact that there were no legal protections for student journalists. As I continued to do more research, I learned about recent county School Board policies regarding their recommendation for handling student press.
The definition of controversial according to Regulation 3280:
An issue is controversial when there are substantial differences of opinion about it on the local, national, or international level and when these differences of opinion are accompanied by intense feelings and strong emotions on the part of individuals or groups.
The current policy encourages prior review on behalf of administration and requires the student journalists to make the changes and edits the administrator requests. Additionally, building administrators have the "role and responsibility" to make the final call on controversial coverage—though the definition of controversial is vague.
Guest Speakers
In order to raise awareness about First Amendment rights and the freedom of speech, tjTODAY and the Young Feminist Party hosted guest speaker and Jefferson alumna Pratika Katiyar.
During the event, we discussed Pratika's experience as the only student representative on the Student Press Law Center’s Board of Directors.
After the event, I spoke with Pratika about my concerns regarding the new county-wide policy and the lack of Virginia press freedoms for high school students. She gave me advice on different avenues of activism to look into. We got on a call for a few minutes on Friday morning, and she put me in contact with some of her colleagues who have journalism press rights or law experience.
In this email, Pratika put me in contact with two individuals who have experience with New Voices student press rights and is a lawyer, respectively.
Fourth Pillar Fourm
We meet biweekly with the intent to pursue county-wide and state-wide initiatives to protect student press rights. Our first meeting was on Jan. 30 and the second was on Feb. 13.
We are all editors on eight different Fairfax County Public Schools publications. This past meeting, we discussed bringing in guest speakers, the response to a letter we sent to the School Board and the Superintendent and what pursuing a state-wide policy would look like.
This was the letter we sent to the Superintendent and the Fairfax County School Board.
This is our Google Drive folder with documents relating to the current policies of the Fairfax County School Board relating to student journalism.
After having a meeting over an hour with the three individuals within FCPS who wrote the new guidance policies for student publications, we were given the opportunity to offer our advice for how to edit the policies to account for the issues that we image will occur in the future. As a forum, we are currently meeting biweekly to discuss the changes we each individually would like to make to get back to the FCPS faculty.
SCHOLASTIC JOURNALISM WEEK
As important as it is to personally be involved with press rights, it's that much more important to ensure the future student journalists are, as well. This year, I went out of my way to make Scholastic Journalism Week a memorable experience for the Journalism 1 students (J1s).
To the left is a few emails exchanged between different leaders within TJ Media as we put together plans for the Scholastic Journalism Week.
We later discussed more in person about what movies we would be allowed to show under short notice with parental permission, as well as what snacks and activities we would be permitted to do during the school day.
Ultimately, we put together a plan for the three days of school (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) that we would have school that week.
We spent a class period discussing the press rights have that are protected by the First Amendment, as well as important court cases that dictate student press laws. After those discussions, we gathered food and watched "The Post" (2017), which covered the Washington Post during the pentagon papers situation, and their decision making process through that pivotal time of press rights.
During the week, the J1s and editors were all given a new assignment, to do something relating to freedom of the press and showing appreciation for both our staff and others. Some students wrote thank-you letters to people they've interviewed in the past, some editors put together notes for their staffers. A few J1s wrote emails to other student publications in the Northern Virginia area, thanking them for their work as student journalists and telling the stories of their community.
A letter to another publication written by a J1 during the week.
Scholastic_Journalism_Week_Assignments_Autosaved.docx (2).pdfTo the left is a PDF of the ideas that I offered the J1s for assignments they could work through.
Ultimately, while it took me time to recognize and research the legal side of student press rights, I intend to continue pursuing this path and work towards proposing policy and protecting the rights of all high school journalists in Virginia, both through legal and social avenues.
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