Law, Ethics and News Literacy
In today's political climate, the need for news literacy is more critical than ever. One of my primary goals as a journalist is to spread truthful, useful and understandable information is digestible formats to improve news literacy on my school's campus and in my community. As both the Editor-in-Chief of Eagle Eye News, and the President of Quill & Scroll, the journalism honor society, I have taken numerous measures to achieve this goal.
Law
As a journalist, especially at the high school level, it is critical to have a strong command of the legal aspects of journalism. By practice, Eagle Eye News is is not under prior review, however, we operate under the Broward County Public Schools, and therefore are subject to the precedents set by the Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier case. BCPS policy outlines that they reserve the right to disapprove any material within our publication that is not consistent with BCPS educational standards, school and community standards, or if they deem that our publication does not serve a purpose consistent with their academic curriculum. With these vague conditions, they serve as further motivation for our publication to maintain high standards, since we are forced to live under constant fear of censorship due to the political climate of our state and community.
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We work to keep good standing with the school administration in order to avoid prior review since that almost always leads to prior restraint. Over the past several years, we have worked to keep a close line of communication with administration, sending them any story we think could potentially be controversial. Because we have built a trust with them, they do not ask to review our printed edition prior to publication; however, the lack of free scholastic journalism in our state forces us to worry and operate with the fear of censorship in the back of our minds.
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Our publication as a whole has been working for the past few years with the Student Press Law Center to get a New Voices Legislation passed that would free us from the threat of prior review and censorship. We managed to have a senator file the bill during the 2022 legislative session, but so far it hasn’t gained much traction in 2023.
within Eagle Eye News, as the wording of the caption and the public relations issues for the school caused major concern for the editorial board that it could have led to prior review of our social media accounts, online website and our print edition.
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This was a reminder of the fact that we have to be clear in our writing and make sure everything is accurate in order to secure our press freedoms. Fortunately, our principal is very supportive of our journalism program and saw this as a learning opportunity for students, instead of a reason to start prior reviewing content.
Social Media
In January 2023, MSD faced struggles with the air conditioning system, which resulted in temperatures in the high 80’s in classrooms. Teachers were given the go-ahead to prop open their classroom doors for better circulation. Eagle Eye News captured a photo of this event for our “photo of the day,” daily Instagram posts documenting unique or interesting events.
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Unfortunately, someone posted screenshots on Twitter and it caused issues for the school administration and the school district. The Twitter thread accused the school and district of opening up our school to another school shooting because teachers were allowed to prop open doors, against school safety practices. Although this was not posted with any sort of malintent, we faced a harsh backlash from the administration regarding the post, as the phrasing of it mistakenly gave the impression that the assistant principal who made the announcement had decided to permit teachers to open their doors, when in reality, district Risk Management had given permission, and the assistant principal was merely the messenger of this news. This post caused chaos
Printed Content
At the start of the 2022-2023 school year, Eagle Eye News wrote an editorial about the unwanted bag checks that district security conducted as part of a school safety program.
This was an example of a story that was written last minute without much editing and oversight and the rush to finish it caused a problem when two lines contained inaccurate information. As a result, the staff to manually go through with a black sharpie and remove lines of the editorial that contained incorrect information. We also added a sticker clarifying the error. We did this not because we were asked, but because we want our paper to be accurate.
Once again, the editorial board was concerned that the incident would put Eagle Eye News at risk of prior review; however, our principal remained supportive of the program and did not subject us to these conditions. She viewed it as a learning opportunity and only asked that students confirm information before printing it.
We have since changed our print schedule to ensure that we have copy editing days with mandatory attendance to avoid these issues. Oftentimes, these mistakes happen due to people’s neglecting of their deadlines. This makes it so our strongest editors as caught up with re-writing stories and redesigning latouts rather than proofreading and correcting errors.
Teaching Journalistic Law
Mrs. Falkowski, the incredible Eagle Eye News adviser, also teaches an introductory journalism course for freshman students. As Editor-in-Chief of Eagle Eye News and as an upperclassman, I created a PowerPoint for these aspiring journalists to teach them about legal and ethical knowledge for student journalists. The content of my presentation includes their First Amendment rights, the extent of their free speech, the nine exceptions to free speech, the Tinker vs. Des Moines and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier cases, information on prior review, prior restraint, how to avoid them and their rights as journalists. Click the image for a link to the Google Slides presentation.
Critical Race Theory
Although we are careful to uphold standards, in Florida’s intense political climate, it can become difficult at times to live in fear of censorship. For pieces like this that contain material that could potentially be deemed controversial, Eagle Eye News and the editorial board always has to work to uphold journalistic ethics and legal standards in order to ensure that our voices will be heard. Through the editing process, we are sure to include diversity in sources, multiple perspectives and entirely unbiased information. Being a student journalist with limited First Amendment freedoms in Florida can be difficult at times, but we have been fortunate to face relatively little censorship. We made sure the school administration knew we were working on this story. Even though we thought there would be controversy from this story, there were zero complaints after it was published.
Ethics
Law and Ethics in My Own Work
As a journalist, I prioritize journalistic standards and ethics in all of our student media. When writing an article, I am always extra careful to keep bias out of my stories. We clearly mark all of our editorials as such and conduct interviews that cover a diverse array of opinions. Even when writing about politics, I am careful to report only on the facts, exercising strong journalistic standards and ethics.
Leading in Responsible Journalism
As the Editor-in-Chief, I review all print stories before they get printed. Even after they have gone through multiple rounds of editing, I often find mistakes. I do my best to educate my team on how to avoid bias and editorializing in news and feature articles. I have displayed here an example of the types of comments I leave on articles in order to educate staff.
News Literacy
In this age where digital media remains the most prevalent source of information for individuals nationwide, the importance of news literacy is expansive. I believe that if the majority of Americans were highly news literate, we would have more peace in politics, both globally and nationally. The goal of a journalist is to spread truthful information, so my goal of boosting news literacy of young people goes hand in hand with what I feel are the ideals behind journalism.
Encouraging Quill & Scroll to boost news literacy
As the Quill and Scroll President, I arranged a meeting this January to go over our plans for Scholastic Journalism Week. I explained to the team my plan to create a series of social media posts that explain to students the difference between real and fake news, how to find reliable sources, how to fact check and promote the three publications that we have at our school newspaper, TV and yearbook. Not only do I aim to help boost campus news literacy myself, but my goal as Quill and Scroll President is to encourage other student journalists to have this goal as well. Click the image below to view our Quill and Scroll Instagram account.
Classroom Presentations
For the 2023 Scholastic Journalism Week and as the Quill and Scroll President, I invited the members of Quill and Scroll to join me in creating a PowerPoint to present to study hall classes in order to help boost the news literacy of our student body. We included information about how to identify fake news and where to find reliable sources. Since Scholastic Journalism Week had not happened at the time of this portfolio's initial creation, I included a picture of me practicing after a Photoshop lesson. In total, I presented to nine classes and the other Quill and Scroll members presented to about 20 more. Click the image for a link to the presentation made by me, Vice President Emily Drelick, member Reece Gary and member Haylie Vacirca.
