Laws, Ethics, & News Literacy:
As student journalists, our inexperience in the field of journalism as well has our preliminary knowledge of press freedoms have the potential to be taken advantage of and limit our journalistic capabilities. Therefore, understanding our rights to write and publish content is vital. Through thorough education on the history of student media rights, the current New Voices law in Washington state, and engaging with the Student Press Law Center when these concerns become a reality, we vehemently protect our freedoms and ensure ethical journalistic practices.
Laws & News Literacy
Ensuring we understand and respect our rights as student journalists is a key tenet of The Cougar Chronicle newsroom. As the journalism program at CKHS developed, so did our awareness of and access to student journalism protections as a public school publication.
The most prevalent laws that directly affect our rights as student journalists are instructed to us by our adviser, in addition to the history of student media and press rights. Though prior review would not be an established practice in our district without it, the New Voices law is ingrained into our staff's collective mind: in counteraction to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, which provides administrations the ability to strictly limit student publication (and, by extension, student voice), administrative interference and censorship of student voice is prohibited.
Commitment to these laws directly translates into our values. Fueled by opportunities to engage with and inform our community as well as staunch devotion to journalistic integrity, we work to achieve our publication's mission of "honoring and protecting our freedom of speech through sharing honest, fair, and relevant information with the student body in a timely and reliable manner in an effort to elevate and amplify student voices."
Our coverage of school walkouts were excellent exercises of our freedom of speech as student journalists. Responsible for a progressive cultural shift, a walkout led by our school's Black Student Union was our first piece of school-related breaking news coverage. This piece's potential controversiality did not spur hesitation within the team of reporters that tackled it: encouraged by our press freedom protections, we gathered student input and experience to publish a thorough news story that worked to capture perspectives of concerned students.
Additionally, beyond the scope of event coverage, The Cougar Chronicle staff have published no shortage of contemporary and often-contentious opinion pieces. We work to publish thorough, researched, and informed opinion pieces that represent a variety of perspectives, as well as how they coincide or conflict to shape both the condition and viewpoints of our community.
Practicing Our First Amendment Rights
Beyond appreciating our First Amendment rights through covering impactful topics, we also had the opportunity to intentionally practice rights outlined in both New Voices as well as our Story and Editorial Policy.
In 2021, we ran into a layered and unfamiliar situation with a district-level employee over publication of a news story that coverage a recent community controversy. A poster that read "Love Has No Gender" was removed from an elementary school classroom, sparking fiery discussion of both support and backlash amongst families and students. One of our reporters on staff immediately delved into the issue, speaking with multiple community members and taking from administrative statements for the story. However, a source, who was also a district official, accepted the interview request under the condition they could read the story before its publication, complicating the original plan for the story.
Fortunately, we as a leadership staff had developed a policy to both strengthen our protections and provide us a guide to directly reference whenever needed. In our annual pre-first semester workshop, we established a Story and Editorial Policy that explicitly lays out our publication's process and protocol for writing and publishing stories, and protects our staff from administrative interference or source's requests for review of the story they are involved with before its publication. We referenced this policy when the source required to read the story prior to publication as a condition to being interviewed in the incident mentioned above. The source's intent was never to subject us to prior review, but standing firmly by our policy established an understanding of our rights as student journalists and set the precedent of advocating for our press freedoms.
In addition, we have had the opportunity to engage with our local Student Press Law Center's legal team to protect our social media accounts as part of our journalistic endeavors. Per our district's policy, all school-affiliated social media accounts must be registered with the district for safety and overview purposes. When we were asked to register our social media accounts with the district, we utilized the SPLC's expertise and advocacy for student press freedoms to allow our Instagram and Facebook accounts to remain independent. Our activities as student journalists are not subject to registration or potential censorship; through following and implementing the New Voices law and guidelines, we ensure our journalistic practices are ethical and opportunities are as unlimited as possible.
Ethics
In addition to upholding our rights to free speech and press, guaranteeing ethical journalistic practices and active consideration of them is of utmost importance. To accomplish this, we ask ourselves questions throughout the story process, from pitch to publication: "Why is this important? Who is affected and who needs to be represented? Did we capture all the necessary information from sources?" If we cannot adequately answer these questions or say "no," we work to find what else is imperative to uncover and include in the story.
Furthermore, The Cougar Chronicle knows that not only is thoroughness central to ethical reporting, but accuracy is as well. From ensuring sources' names are spelled correctly to nailing down the precise dates or providing exact quotes from stories, we maintain a culture of accurate and fair reporting that uplifts our community as well as properly informs them. This additionally aids in ensuring that our news reporting is unbiased, finding and including diverse student voices and views in our pieces. Providing the "big picture" might cover the bases, but delving into the story to discover all the possible perspectives, aspects, and angles with intentionality in accuracy and thoroughness is what we strive for.
As mentioned previously, our walkout coverage pieces were of great importance to our student body. Our most-liked post on our Instagram is of the Black Student Union walkout, indicating students value us as not only a news source but a way for student voice to be elevated. The process of writing and publishing these news stories incorporated a great deal of ethical consideration. Through investigative research, interviews with involved students, and careful reporting, our news coverage team told the story of a culturally impactful walkout in a truthful, accurate, thorough, and compassionate manner.
Additionally, we have found that thoroughly and covering representing teenagers' and school-age peers' voices and experiences can be challenging. Though our recorded interviews provide the reality of what was said, sometimes story subjects find they misspoke and their true feelings or experiences are not represented in their interview. To maintain strongly ethical journalism, our policy is not to alter quotes in a story (unpublished or published) at the request of a subject when the interview recordings proves their truth. However, we acknowledge that students are young and human, and often struggle to find the right way to express their experiences; keeping stories up that do not reflect their lived experience for the sake of staying true to the recorded quotes could pose harm or damage to the community's understanding of what actually occurred or is actually true. Therefore, we find a balance in our Takedown Policy: as a leadership staff, we have the right to decide what stays published or what gets removed from our website. When sources reach out with concerns over their quotes, we review the story, consider its implications, and determine if it is appropriate or necessary to offer the source the opportunity to take the story down from our website. This way, we uphold another ethical aspect: ensuring students feel accurately represented and safe, while respecting our right and obligation to report interviews and quotes exactly as given. Though we have not utilized this policy as of yet, it serves to protect our rights as student journalists and sources' rights to be accurately represented beyond the quotes they provide.
Practicing ethical journalism requires much consideration and intentionality to achieve optimal reporting in stories and ensure our community is compassionately and accurately represented. Incorporating all aspects of stories is essential in our pursuit of ethical journalism.