Of the five rights guaranteed to me in the first amendment, the freedom of the press has had the biggest impact on me at this point in my life. My freshman year I entered the journalism program not really knowing what to expect, but I ended up enjoying it and decided to join the newspaper.
I think there are a couple misconceptions about the newspaper. For one, it is student run, meaning the staff chooses what goes in, writes, designs the pages, and puts it all together. Yes, we have an adviser, but her job is to give us advice, not tell us what to do.
That being said, our administration treats our staff with respect and as adults. We are trusted to publish quality and accurate information for the student body. There are many schools in which this does not happen. Often times, schools succumb to prior review and/or prior restraint. This not only limits the opportunities for student journalists, but also creates an uneasy, uncomfortable feeling between the administration and high school staff.
Do not get me wrong, throughout my years on staff we have had our fair share of slip-ups (most upperclassmen and teachers probably remember the scandalous word that was accidentally printed in the May issue last year), but our administration continues to trust us and knows we are responsible; we would never intentionally try to slander someone or defame them.
I have heard dozens of horror stories from other staffs about the principal reading student newspapers before they go to print and making the staff change them. What makes those administrations different from ours is their understanding. Most of the administrators here know how long it takes us to build the newspaper from scratch (about a month, for those of you who do not know), and how hard we work to make the best issue possible.
Years ago at Stevenson High School the newspaper, The Statesman, published a spread which their administration deemed inappropriate.
“The people on staff wrote a spread about how the culture in high school has changed, like the hook up culture, and trying to warn the student body about certain things to look out for,” Paige Lalain, managing editor of production and senior on The Statesman, said.” The administration got involved and decided to have them cut [an] article out of the paper. And it was a big deal, all of the kids on staff that year decided to quit for a while as like a hiatus. For a while they were subject to prior review, so every issue they sent everything over to admin to have them read over it, to make sure everything was okay and that it could go to print.”
Years later, the school loosened up and decided to refrain from the use of prior review.
“It was a trust thing. After a while, everybody was really upset about it on the staff, because it’s a frustrating thing to have people looking over your shoulder trying to make sure everything you do is up to a certain code, when really the nature of journalism is just to report what you see that’s appropriate and necessary,” Lalain said. “Now, the administration one hundred percent trusts us. The principal is always there talking to us, and we’re all on good terms with admin, so it’s much different now.”
The process of creating a newspaper is much more extensive than some may think. To sum it up in a sentence, we pick a story idea, find appropriate sources, conduct interviews, write the article, revise it at least five times, take photos or get cartoons, design the pages for about a week and a half, then finally, send it to print. But this is not like any other class in which you can push the deadlines back and just lose some points. If we do not meet the deadline to send our paper to print, we cannot run the issue. So when I hear stories about the principal making staffs cut out stories, photos, or whatever else, my heart goes out to them.
The first amendment guarantees freedom of the press for the people on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC; it gives freedom for the young journalists as well.
“Freedom of the press is a really big thing for not just myself but everybody on staff, and I think that carries over to all the high school newspapers. I take a lot pride in being able to go up to people in the area and ask questions and get to know things,” Lalain said. “With freedom of speech I get to go around and ask whatever I want and ask for information of people, and they don’t have to fear giving me the information. And then from there, freedom of the press really allows us to let everybody know what’s going on and what’s relevant: what we think is important and what we think people should know. And the fact that we are the ones with that power is a really cool thing.”