Streisel

 






  

Controversy in story subjects often a lack of focus, purpose
By Jim Streisel, Carmel High School adviser

Quality Control

Adhering to standards is not censorship. It’s essential to preserving good journalism.

A student of mine recently approached me with a rough draft of a column that he wanted to have printed in the upcoming issue of the school newspaper. The column was about defecation.

            “We can’t run this,” I told the boy.

            “Why not?” He seemed incredulous.

            “Because it has no point,” I told him.

            “It doesn’t have to have a point,” he said. “It’s supposed to be funny. People will read it.”

For the record, the piece did have some funny moments, but it was mostly, well, crap (excuse the pun). “Just because something’s funny and people will read it doesn’t mean it has a place in the school newspaper,” I said. “A good column should have a point, something that you want readers to think about.”

We spent the next 20 minutes running circles around each other – me giving him advice on how he might salvage a point from his draft and him insisting that the piece was fine as is.

“Fine,” I said to end it. “The bottom line is this – if you want the piece to run, you need to make changes. If you don’t make changes, it won’t run. It’s your choice.”

The student, ultimately, did not make the changes. The “column” never ran.

Student journalism under fire

Scholastic journalism (particularly in Indiana) has come under some scrutiny of late. Almost weekly I turn on the TV or open my Indy Star to find yet another publication in hot water over something it has printed. And while, thankfully, we haven’t yet had those problems where I teach, because of the media attention, the comparisons are inevitable. Media is media, after all, and if it happens at one school, well, why can’t it be happening at ours? And because of this scrutiny, we, as a scholastic journalism fraternity, must stand together to keep our standards high and to keep the responsibility for solid journalism and free speech where it belongs – in the hands of the students and faculty advisers who create these publications.

The key word in that last sentence, of course, is “responsibility.” Free speech isn’t really free, after all; it comes with responsibility, and that’s where the concern lies. If we don’t act now to demand higher standards from our publications students, then those “rights” to free speech may simply dissolve. Too often students get the incorrect mindset (like the student in the illustration above) that membership on a publications staff somehow gives them the right to publish whatever they want.

If I simply turn it in, they think, then I’ll see it on the pages of the paper next week. But that type of thinking is wrong. What’s more, it’s dangerous. The U.S. Supreme Court in its Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision has said that free speech, at least for school-sponsored publications, is a fallacy. There is a definite line between what is allowed in the “professional” press versus what’s allowed in schools. Thankfully, we have enjoyed, for the most part, administrations that allow our students the ability to exercise their First Amendment rights despite what Hazelwood says. These administrations recognize how important a free student press is both in creating a voice for the student readers and providing as realistic a journalism experience as possible for those who create the publications.

But we’re making it more difficult for those administrators to continue that practice. The fear is that if we allow our standards to deteriorate then the practice may not continue. As journalists, therefore, we must be more selective in what we allow to appear in our printed pages.

Censorship v. standards

Being selective is not censorship; in fact, it’s quite the contrary. After all, there’s a fundamental difference between censorship and meeting standards of quality. And student journalists aren’t alone in demanding this quality. The professional press has its standards as well. The New York Times doesn’t run everything that reporters submit; the phrase in its nameplate reads “All the news that’s fit to print,” not “All the news that printed to fit.” When I told the student above that his column couldn’t run, I wasn’t censoring him. Rather, I was simply requiring him to meet a journalistic standard that we have on our staff. If his writing couldn’t meet the standard, then it wouldn’t be published.

On the other hand, censorship, by definition, means that an adult – an adviser, an administrator – dismisses a story out of hand simply because of its subject matter. “Oh, a story about drugs and alcohol abuse? No.” “A piece about abortion? Uh-uh.” Meeting standards is something completely different. The strongest publications have a clearly defined list of standards and a staff that does its best to uphold those standards in everything it produces. Interestingly, it is also these strong publications that do the best job in covering controversial subject matter when it arises.

To run or not to run?

The most important standard when determining a story’s newsworthiness is figuring out the point. After all, two of the three primary roles of publications are to inform and educate (the third is to entertain). And that means that journalists shouldn’t write about what readers already know. Pick your “taboo” subject – drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. – and immediately the “red flags” go up. Any journalist worth his salt should recognize that these topics will raise scrutiny. So should you simply choose to avoid these topics altogether? Absolutely not. That’s self-censorship, which is even worse than censorship from outside sources. But recognize that these topics are just that – topics.

They are not stories. Not yet. You must take these topics (and any topic, for that matter) to the next level; what do you want readers to think about that topic that they’ve not thought about before? Is there new research that sheds a different light on the topic? Has there been a recent outbreak of students getting arrested for engaging in illegal activities, for example? Have the results of a recent school-wide survey indicated that certain activities are on the rise? If the answer is yes to these types of questions (which, by the way, also give the story both credibility and timeliness), then you are on firmer ground to pursue these stories. What’s more, these types of stories are much easier to defend should they come under scrutiny.

For example, a recent issue of Columbus North High School’s award-winning student newspaper, the Triangle, featured a four-page section about oral sex. It was followed by some public outcry, including a meeting by the local school board to discuss the possibility of tightening the reins on the publication and creating a journalistic environment that would include prior review and/or prior restraint. The attempt failed in large part because the Triangle has a clearly defined journalistic standard. The feature on oral sex wasn’t written simply because it was controversial. Rather, the students had done their homework, finding extensive research (both in-school and from credible professionals) that indicated that oral sex was on the rise among their peers and that many students did not understand the health risks inherent in participating in oral sex. In other words, they had something new to tell their readers, something their readers didn’t already know.

What’s more, the Triangle staff kept its principal in the loop. Before they even ran the story, members of the staff met with their principal, explaining to him why they wanted to run the story and citing the research that they had already conducted. The principal, while he admitted that he wasn’t comfortable with the subject matter, was comfortable with the students on the staff and their ability to share the information for the student readership in a thoughtful and responsible manner. Ultimately, I’m sure, these are the reasons why the newspaper staff managed not only to cover the issue but also to convince its school board that a policy restricting the students’ ability to write about controversial issues was unwarranted.

It’s up to you

In the end, individual staffs must do their best to uphold the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Controversy is inevitable simply because one of the biggest elements of news is conflict. Without conflict, events are just not newsworthy and probably don’t deserve coverage. But with conflict, you’ll find people who take sides and who take offense if they feel the media isn’t presenting all sides equally and fairly.

Student journalists don’t need to take the “safe” route and only present stories without controversy. But they also don’t need to seek out controversy simply because it’s sensational. Ultimately, good journalists seek out the news, whatever it is. If it’s controversial? So be it. If it’s a little more “tame?” That’s OK, too. But for all stories, student journalists should be able to answer this question clearly and concisely – What do we want our readers to think about (insert topic here)? Once that question is clearly answered, the follow-up question should be this – Does this story fully answer all potential reader questions in regards to this issue? Regardless of the topic, every story must adhere to the same standard of quality. And if the story doesn’t meet that standard? Then don’t run it. It’s as simple as that.

Because if you do, then, like my student’s column, we’re all heading down the toilet.

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