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LAW, ETHICS AND
NEWS LITERACY
This year, I learned more about law and ethics than ever before. I experienced having to deal with navigating new procedures and changes, ethical scenarios with stories and photos, fact-checking extensively.
LAW
NAVIGATING NEW POLICIES
At the beginning of this school year, my adviser alerted me and my Co-EIC Anna of a new procedure change within the district. On our district's website, they had an updated media policy that stated that any interview requests had to go through the new Executive Director of Public Relations and Communications.
The diction on this was very unclear and we were facing a lot of confusion about what this would mean for the publication, so I was advised to contact the SPLC and speak with them about what to do. I set up an appointment with one of their representatives, and he recommended that I set up a meeting with the district officials to clarify details and come to a conclusion.
As we are not the only high school publication in our city, I worked to also involve the EICs at Cedar BluePrints, calling them to work out details and help communicate between publications. With their help and the help of our respective advisers, I drafted this email to Dr. Moore, the Executive Director of Public Relations and Communications as a request to set up a meeting with her.
Eventually, we were able to set up a meeting with Dr. Moore and two other district officials to review the policy, so Anna and I, along with our adviser, and the adviser and EICs for BluePrints met at the district office with the officials. Our adviser recommended that we take the time to listen and hear first before asking questions, so Anna and I allowed them to talk about their reasoning for setting up the procedure.
It ended up being more of a procedure in place for outside media, not student journalists, but we did find out that any time we requested to meet with district personnel, that we would have to reach out through Dr. Moore. This has hindered us this year in some ways, as it has prevented us from attaining some information in a timely manner, but I was glad that we were able to meet and clear up the confusion.
BEFORE
AFTER
The photos above show the district policy before and after we met, showing how we were able to help clarify the new procedure and ensure that it wouldn't hinder our work as student journalists. I am very proud that I was able to help create change, even small changes like this, and I feel even more well-versed in law and ethics having done it.
ETHICS
ETHICS PRESENTATION + SCENARIOS
At the beginning of the year each year, we as a staff take the time to go over some ethical scenarios to ensure that we know what to do in difference circumstances.
Our adviser guides us through the presentation, giving us time to discuss and come to a consensus about the action steps we would take. We go over what self-censorship is vs. censorship by others, as well as how to handle complicated conversations about ethics.
These are two examples of some of the ethical scenarios that we go over as a class. These conversations are always really interesting to me, as they allow me to get a feel for how others think and believe, and I think that having these open and transparent conversations allow for us to be less afraid of approaching ethical considerations in real life.
BATHROOM ILLUSTRATIONS
Last year, I worked with our Editor-at-Large, Nico Willman, on a story about the state of our school's bathrooms.
We identified the problems, causes, and solutions in a two part series and discussed the terrible conditions that student's deal with everyday.
The only problem was, we weren't able to take photos of the school restrooms during the school day for privacy reasons, so we had to figure out a way to ethically go about representing the state of the bathrooms.
The solution that we landed on was having our illustrator, Antonio, create visual representations.
We knew that we needed to have photographic proof to back up our illustrations however, so one day during a weekend weekday, Nico, Antonio and I went around to all the bathrooms in the school and took photos of the broken mirrors, dismantled toilets, and terrible wall graffiti. After that, Antonio got to work on trying to replicate the photos, and it took many rounds of edits to finally get the final visuals.
BEFORE
AFTER
These before and after shots show the progression that the visuals went through. In the first set, Antonio drew a foot stuck in gum and covered in urine from the bathroom, but ethically, we knew we couldn't include that because we didn't actually see that happening in the bathroom. After talking to Antonio about it, he swapped the drawing out to be something more accurate to the stall damage we had see in the bathroom.
After many rounds of edits on each drawing, we finally got to the point where we felt satisfied with the result and we felt that we had done our due diligence to represent the actual state of the restrooms.
CORRECTIONS AND OMISSIONS
One significant thing that we as a program use to make sure that we are taking ownership of our mistakes is through our corrections and omissions.
In each issue of the ODYSSEY Newsmagazine, we go through the previous issue and identify any mishaps or errors within the previous publication and publish them in the next issue, with the intent of owning up to our mistakes and recognizing that we aren't a perfect publication. This helps maintain our credibility as a publication and lets our readers know that we care about being truthful and honest as a staff.
FACT-CHECKING WITH ADMIN
One thing that is always heavily emphasized to each staff member in the ODYSSEY is that fact-checking is the most crucial step in writing. Because of this, I send a lot of fact-checking emails to our administrators, even for the smallest of details.
In our first issue this year, we had a student write a story about the new chorus teacher, and we needed to fact-check the enrollment numbers for the class before publishing. I emailed Dr. Smith, our Assistant Principal and met with her in her office to discuss the numbers. The photos above are just a few examples of emails I have sent to admin about fact-checking for stories.
NEWS LITERACY
CONTENT REDELIVERY
Last week, my colleague Aza and I did a content redelivery presentation for the class based on a session we heard at NSPA in Boston. Our adviser asked everyone to pair up and redeliver a presentation from NSPA to the class so that they could hear all of the great information too, and Aza and I chose this one because we felt it impacted us the most.
I absolutely loved this session and it completed changed the way I look at journalism now. The past several years, I was given the impression that true, objective storytelling is telling both sides, but after going through this presentation, I understand that to be the opposite of objectivity. Objectivity is conveying to your readers the actual truth, what you know to be the facts. Objectivity is not defined by others, but by the undeniable truth, and I understand that now more than ever.
STORY CHECKLISTS
One thing that has helped me understand the true components of a story is using story checklists throughout the writing process. We have checklists for everything in ODYSSEY - from scenes, to news briefs, to profiles - and each one has the components of what a solid story should be.
They contain formatting things, like bylines and headers, AP style checks, news values, and more. These checklists have helped me stay on track anytime I am writing a story, and because of it, I feel that I can more accurately understand what is expected of me when writing.
CONFERENCE NOTES
Each time we attend a conference, I try to take as extensive notes as possible on each session I attend. My goal is always to push myself outside of my comfort zone and attend sessions that may be about something I don't know a whole lot about. I want to use these conferences, such as NSPA, SIPA, and GSPA, as a way to grow my knowledge as a journalist and explore outside of the things I already understand.
I often find myself going back over my notes again and again even after the conference is over, and I have found a lot of help and guidance in doing so. I attended a really great pre-con session on leadership at this past NSPA, and since then, I have gone back at my notes to look at the tips on engaging your staff and working with a team.
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