The endangered student media

Overt censorship and a lack of awareness of First Amendment rights are eroding the influence of the high school media and silencing school programs, a J-Ideas investigation of the scholastic press shows. The Student Press Law Center (SPLC), a watchdog agency for scholastic media, reported that complaints about censorship increased 35 percent in calendar year 2003 over the previous 12 months. “These numbers suggest that the student media – like all news organizations and the public at large – has been significantly affected by the growing trend toward government secrecy,” said Mark Goodman, executive director of the SPLC.

And who knows what is not being reported. A recent First Amendment survey shows that many high school students polled say they either do not know how they feel about their rights to free speech or they take them for granted. They would welcome government censorship of stories.

Derek Springer still carries the baggage of a courageous First Amendment struggle, nearly eight months after he traded in his Muncie (Ind.) Central High School cap and gown for his adult life.

For years a fan of Central’s celebrated boys basketball team, he has yet to visit the school this year to watch the game he had grown to love.

This comes more than a year after the former editor of the Central student newspaper, the Munsonian, endured obstacles from students and teachers to publish a story about how the school’s basketball coach, the late Bill Harrell, violated rules by paying his players. Harrell later resigned. The story was honored last year by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for its courage in pursuing the truth.

Springer said he and other Central newspaper staffers faced opposition from the school administration when they tried to shoot photos after a meeting of those involved in the Harrell case. And staffers were denied credentials to some athletic events after Springer quoted an administrator who had asked to retract on-the-record statements, Springer said.
“It was a story that had to be reported,” said Springer. “We were doing what we had to do.”

What happened last summer has not made it easier for Springer. Harrell, who suffered heart problems for more than 35 years, tragically died in a fishing mishap.

“I don’t feel responsibility for his death, but it does dwell in the back of my mind,” said Springer, as he explains his reluctance to attend a basketball game at Central.

Springer, a first-year student at Ivy Tech State College in Indiana, was in the news again in January, commenting to a national audience in USA Today about the state of student media and First Amendment training in the nation’s high schools.
He told USA Today, “We know that we can publish our opinion, and that we might be scrutinized, but we know we didn’t do anything wrong.”

The lessons learned and practiced by Springer are lost on many today as overt censorship and a lack of awareness of First Amendment rights are eroding the influence of the high school media and silencing school programs across the country.
The Student Press Law Center (SPLC), a watchdog agency for scholastic media, reported last fall that complaints about censorship increased 35 percent in calendar year 2003 over the previous 12 months.

“These numbers suggest that the student media – like all news organizations and the public at large – has been significantly affected by the growing trend toward government secrecy,” said Mark Goodman, executive director of the SPLC.

And who knows what is not being reported. A First Amendment survey released last week shows that many high school students polled say they either do not know how they feel about their rights to free speech or they take them for granted.
The $1 million study developed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation involved more than 100,000 students and 544 high schools nationwide. Lack of awareness is rampant, the Knight study shows:

• Three-fourths of high school students surveyed either do not know how they feel about the First Amendment or admit they take it for granted.
• More than a third think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.
• Half erroneously believe the government has the right to censor the Internet.
• Seventy-five percent erroneously think flag burning is illegal.

“The results are not only disturbing, they are dangerous,” said Knight Foundation President Hodding Carter III. “Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to this nation’s future.”

Said Sandy Woodcock, director of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, “The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our democratic society. Unfortunately, young people don’t live it enough. It becomes like the granite monument in the park that we say we will visit but never do.”

Other pressures exist on scholastic journalism and media. Some schools have abandoned student media because of confrontations over controversial stories, or closed shop because journalism is not a core requirement and college-bound students are being pushed to take more math, science and language courses.

The award-winning student newspaper in Munster/ Hammond, Ind., will not publish at all this year because teacher Nancy Hastings could not attract enough students to participate.

The Knight study also will show that 40 percent of the schools surveyed have eliminated student newspapers since 1999. Nationwide, 20 percent of all schools have no student media whatsoever.

“This (Knight) report illuminates an untenable gap in our education system in teaching and understanding the First Amendment and the freedoms we cherish,” said Diana Mitsu Klos, senior project director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ high school journalism program. “Therefore, it’s no surprise that the health of scholastic journalism is in jeopardy.”

Linda Puntney, the executive director of the Journalism Education Association (JEA), agrees. “Schools don’t do enough to teach the First Amendment. Students often don’t know the rights it protects.”
Recent censorship efforts are part of a long-term pattern and signal the gravity of the problem.

Students are granted the same First Amendment freedoms as professional newspapers –except for one small area. Educators, according to the 1988 Hazelwood Supreme Court decision "do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."

Problem is, say student media legal experts, administrators sometimes misuse that excuse.
“Too many school administrators happily take that, and other court decisions, as license to keep students from printing stories critical of school policies,” said Dennis Ryerson, editor of The Indianapolis Star. “They limit student speech and assembly.”
In November in Glenbard, Ill., the high school’s adviser, Peter Giaquinta, was fired after he refused to submit a list of controversial story ideas for administrative approval. The flash point: a plan to write about masturbation and how the topic is dealt with in the school’s curriculum.

In Annandale, Va., local police seized the digital camera of a student journalist who was taking photos of five patrol cars encircling students near the school. Adam Goldstein, a lawyer with the SPLC, said the police “threatened to have the student journalist kicked off the paper.” Police later apologized.

In Monroe, N.Y., a high school student working as a freelance reporter for a local newspaper was suspended from school last month after a confrontation during an interview with a local middle school principal. The student had asked a question about students complaining about an unruly district bus driver and was told to leave. When he questioned why, he was taken away by school security officers. Later, he was suspended from his own school for allegedly being insubordinate to the middle school administrator.

“Administrators are not making it easy for the student press,” said SPLC’s Goodman. “There just has to be a sea change in attitudes among administrators.”

Tom Gayda, publications adviser at North Central High School and president of the Indiana High School Press Association, believes students learn best from practicing their rights. “Censorship and prior review hardly help them achieve that goal. I have no censorship or prior review issues, as they take away from the advisers job and the role the students play,” Gayda said.
There is hope, however.

The Knight Foundation has invested more than $10 million in a multi-year project to promote and support student media. ASNE has received the lion’s share of that money, and is funding partnerships between professional newspapers and high schools that want to start student media. A similar program is under way at the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF).
Since 2001, ASNE has given out $797,701 to 209 schools that have partnered with 150 newspapers. One of these partnerships involves Ball State’s J-Ideas project and Ryerson’s Indianapolis Star. Together, the Star and J-Ideas have helped start a scholastic journalism program at the George Washington Community School, a new inner-city Indianapolis high school.

In fact, student media in urban schools is particularly hard-hit, said ASNE’s Klos. More is being done there as well. In New York City, Baruch College and the New York Times Foundation are teaming to develop student media at more than 200 high schools. The Washington Post continues to grow its Young Journalists Development Program in the District of Columbia and the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia.

Journalism teachers agree that changes must take place in school administrations. They point out, however, that those same administrators who are sometimes friend and sometimes foe to the student press are probably the busiest people in their respective high schools.

“The kids don’t know the pressure the principal is under from all sides,” said Randy Swikle, former journalism teacher and adviser in Johnsburg, Ill., and former Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Journalism Teacher of the Year.

Educational experts have long documented the conflicting priorities of a school principal. At any point in the workday, a school principal serves as a manager, instructional leader, disciplinarian, human relations facilitator, change agent and conflict mediator.
Patricia Flowers, principal at Connersville (Ind.) High School, establishes a trust relationship between the adviser and principal. “Mistakes are part of what makes a good student publication. I will support them (adviser and students).”
Teachers, lawyers and others agree on one thing: students must routinely exercise their First Amendment rights for the student press to remain truly free and not just a public-relations tool for administrators.

“A great harm is being done to a generation of young adults by withholding the full access of their constitutional rights while in high school, then expecting them to be full participants in a democratic society when they are older,” said Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center, based in Nashville, Tenn.

Warren Watson is director of the J-Ideas high school initiative at Ball State University and a 26-year veteran of U.S. newspapers. Prior to joining the BSU journalism faculty in July 2004, he was vice president of the American Press Institute.

Sarah Childers is a graduate student at Ball State, and will be teaching high school media in the fall.

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Terry Nelson