I've always been interested in politics.  As a senior with four years of telling stories under my belt, I finally felt ready to tackle such a sensitive piece.  In my brainstorming, I felt as though focusing on local politics would be a much better option than covering national politics because I felt like I could have more access to local politicians.  I turned my focus to the congressional district of which Grandview was a part - Colorado's Sixth.  I contacted and invited the non-incumbent candidate, John Fabbricatore, for an interview.

I had never covered a story about people who weren't directly affiliated or connected to Grandview or the Cherry Creek School District before which is why I didn't understand or even know of the process of filling out a Guest Speaker Form.  While I acknowledge that I made a misstep in not informing any administrators about a candidate coming into Grandview, it still does not excuse the response from the district. 

In response to the invitation of a political candidate, the Cherry Creek School District Legal team was contacted to ensure that each party was playing within the rules.  This is where my adviser, Mr. Roberts, was contacted and was told explicitly that we could not run a story or interview candidates about their platforms, and why people should vote for them, or just vote in general, citing the Fair Campaign Act and their own District Policy to claim that our program was not a public forum.  I felt that this was an attempt to censor our speech, so I immediately contacted the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) to seek advice and help.  Below is the response I got.  

As Mr. Roberts and I began to get the situation sorted out between our own administrators and our District's Legal Team, they came to us with a new development: because our weekly announcements were a required part of homeroom, it was another reason we couldn't run this story - despite it never being a planned part of any video shown in homeroom.  They also claimed that since there was no precedence and we had never run a story like this before, we couldn't do it now.  Again, we contacted the SPLC for their advice.  Below is the response we got.

The solution that the District came up with for us was to do everything completely out of house.  My equipment, my time, my space - completely cutting GVTV and student-run broadcast programs out of it.  The other option they left me was to invite both candidates in for a scripted segment about why young people should vote without any questions about their platforms or policies.  This was so frustrating - the core and the heart of the story was absent.  This wasn't good enough. 

Finally, a meeting was scheduled for our Principal, the Activities Director, my advisors Mr. Roberts and Mr. Varca, our District's Legal Team, and myself to iron out all the issues.  Together, we determined that there were clear miscommunications between administrators and District Legal where the true purpose of GVTV was not as school-sponsored speech for announcements in homeroom, but rather as a fully functioning student-run journalism program that is an open forum.  That piece was lost in translation as it was made clear that neither our administrators nor our District's Legal Team knew that from the jump.   They advised us to include words like "student-run" in the bios of our social media pages, as well as a link to our Editorial Policy. 

This was one of the most frustrating situations in my life.  I was trying to run our program like normal with the cloud of censorship above my head while also trying to work on my own stories without even knowing if I was allowed to.  It uprooted my entire sense of identity - not knowing what I could and could not do.  What made it even more frustrating was that I failed to really understand the basis of their claims; our equipment couldn't be used because it was purchased using tax dollars; and not recognized as a public forum but our sister program, the Grandview Chronicle, was; not being able to run it because of our homeroom weekly announcements preventing us from being designated a public forum; and being told how to tell the story made this story so hard and almost killed my motivation.  I began to question the point of running this story or any story with an impact but I wouldn't let them win.  We conducted the interview and moved on with the story - navigating other story-related obstacles along the way.  Below is the final product of our story. 

As a man, walking to the pool with cameras and livestream equipment for Girls Swim and Dive is always one I have to be conscious of.  Shooting ethically means going through every photo, making sure that I am not getting any athlete from behind or showing anything that would break school rules, and save any athlete from embarrassment.  Still, there is a lot that is out of my control.  These sports still deserve coverage, and I'm not afraid to cover them, but I have to be careful.  Above are shots I took at Girls Dive State.  I had to remove a lot of great pictures because it broke the "No Photos From Behind" rule.  I chose to include the first picture because it shows Addi, one of our divers, at the apex of her dive, getting into position.  The second photo is an example of me making a deliberate point not to show anything embarrassing while our athletes are getting ready to dive.  These are the sorts of things I consider when trying to shoot Girls Swim and Dive ethically.

Every one of our staff members needs to know what freedoms they have.  This is why, as an editorial board, we teach students about their rights and what Supreme Court cases and laws are in place to protect student speech. 

While I can't take the credit for work that I didn't do. 

We are fortunate to live in Colorado - a state with New Voice Laws protecting student speech.  It guides every decision I make; after all, I acknowledge that I am responsible for all content that is produced by GVTV.  These laws are in place to protect journalists, students, and schools, which is why we must have them.