Earlier today I was telling one of my group members a story about this past year that profoundly affected the way I taught journalism and advised our school newspaper. It's a long post, but I think it presents an interesting ethical dilemma. I do want your feedback on what you would do, so if you're willing, hang in there.
Last year I inherited a journalism program that had some considerable history. The old adviser hung up her hat because she was burned out on advising the newspaper. She still teaches at my school and her old staff love her very much. (One of my EIC's was her daughter). The newspaper has previously won awards at state and national competitions, so it was a solid program to work with.
Before the school year started, my principal wanted to talk to me about the newspaper program. What he ended up telling me was about all the scandalous and problematic stories that were published or were appropriately (in his mind) squashed.
He told me one story that I would go on to hear again and again, from different points of view, and have to deal with for the rest of the year.
A couple years before I got to Mandan High, the students had used North Dakota's excellent sunshine laws to get teachers' records, personnel files, their evaluation tools - whatever they could get their hands on for a story about grading teachers.
The writers, (one of which was my other editor in chief), polled some of the student body (40 students of a total 1000ish) about what they thought of their teachers.
The resulting article was a one page piece explaining in about 200 words (my estimate) what they had done and then a graphic that took up 2/3 of the page with a list of every teacher's name per department and a letter grade. The grading ranged from an A or A+ at the highest (I don't know if anyone gave that) to a C for the lowest. Next to each letter grade were comments from the students.
The reaction was quite volatile. The teacher (and he was the only teacher to get this) who got the C, banned the newspaper from his room and would never again participate or allow any of the students in his class to be pulled out for newspaper activities. Students dealt with the backlash by publishing an editorial the next issue defending their actions and their ability to assess their teachers.
I heard the story of this article and the ensuing chaos from my current newspaper staff members (because some were there when the story had been written), from the old adviser, and heard bits and pieces repeatedly from my coworkers.
The old adviser was firm that the students had the right to publish it. The other teachers that told me about it felt betrayed and were suspicious of my leadership and my staff. The students on staff felt buoyed by that and other struggles that they had had with administration, and definitely had a hero-villain mentality between them and administration.
Teachers said they had heard that one of the writers of the story was on a witch hunt out to get a teacher she disliked.
Needless to say, the climate that I walked into last fall was about as suspicious and negative as I could get from every turn - my admin wanted me to rework the program and take better charge, my students wanted to continue fighting administration because they had the Right, and my coworkers tentatively allowed my students to use them and their classes for the paper.
I can't tell you how many times I heard from people that they didn't agree with how the paper was run before... and then had backhanded comments about how they approved of what I was doing now.
This one situation made me go back and forth about my place as adviser and what I had the authority to do and say safely right up until the end of the year.
For much of the beginning of the year, I was paranoid about being too involved in the publication. I'd taken a media law class that summer and had an idea of the structures and protections and cases that formed student press law.
You see, there are no laws for free speech and student press in ND and our paper was already under prior review by a controlling principal. I was banking off of us living up to the public forum claim we made in our editorial policy and being a separate entity from the school so I tried to keep my hands off.
One layout weekend we had a heated debate because the students were sure that what they did with that article was right and ok. I tried to calmly convey that just because you can, doesn't mean you do. My frustration was that I was suffering and having to reforge relationships that I had done nothing to harm, I just accepted the position. My other frustration was that my students had little foresight about the impact of their articles and touted that they had free speech and by golly they were going to express it.
I felt lost for quite awhile.
I was terrified of having to go through a situation like that. Whenever I heard that story my gut twisted like nuts - yeah students have a right to grade my performance. Yeah maybe they have the right to publish it. Yeah, I can't and shouldn't censor their viewpoint. But gosh, it doesn't feel right to publish something like that.
I started expressing my concerns and doing some research. I got on the JEA listserv and started listening to the nationwide conversation of other advisers and reached out to my local advisers too. I remembered something I'd forgotten from my media law class, Ethics.
I started to realize that if I didn't say "No you can't do that!" and instead helped them see reason (and helped them reason through what they were doing) that I was doing the correct adviserly thing, but I still felt guilty about manipulating them. (I know I know I'm a worry wart)
Now that I've seen from our presenters that yes it is all about tact, and that yes it is ok to tell students they should slow down and think, and yes, students should be checked occasionally, I feel much better.
I think I may send a few big, gaudy, thank you cards to our presenters this week and last week. I finally feel like I'm ready to be the teacher.
That's my story about how I my journalism adviser ethics evolved in one year!
I am curious to hear from you - if you had a situation like this, what would you do?
I am open to your ideas and your reasons. I've gone through the situation many times in my head but I want to know what YOU think. Maybe you have something to say that I haven't thought of yet.
Thanks so much for hanging in there with me. I look forward to hearing from you!
Hannah Sagaser
Mandan High School
Mandan, ND
Thanks for posting this, Hannah. What a tough situation...you were truly thrust in to the middle of a lose/lose position. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to have refused to talk about the previous year or previous adviser...especially if her daughter was one of your chiefs. Just consider what THIS staff is about. I would recommend your group deciding what their mission statement is. What does it say currently? Do they want to change it? Sure, "gotcha journalism" can be fun but at the end of the day...what have they got? A bad reputation within the school and among their peers. Be brave, Hannah. It's up to you to set the tone for your classroom and publication. It will take time but you're right to say....just because you CAN publish something...doesn't mean you should. Good luck, Hannah. Debbie
ReplyDeleteI agree with Debbie, Hannah. Lead your staff next year the way you see fit. Gain control over the situation. That doesn't mean shooting down their stories, but your idea of having them know that just because you can doesn't mean you should is a good start.
ReplyDeleteI also suggest that you ask them "What is the PURPOSE of this article?" If they don't have a sufficient answer, work with them to find an angle that has a (appropriate) purpose that is ethical.
I am not the most experienced, but that's what I got.
Bidjan Aminian
Dublin High School
Dublin, CA
Reading about your experience, I decided to go back to the SPJ Code of Ethics to see if it would help me evaluate the students’ decision to publish. I saw that the students certainly acted independently, but did they:
ReplyDelete1. seek truth and report it? This would mean they were honest and fair. So did they go to the teachers as part of their reporting, to find out what the teachers thought of their methodology?
2. minimize harm? Did they treat their sources with respect? If so, they would have notified the administration & teachers before publication of their story.
3. hold themselves accountable? If they did, they would have been willing to clarify and explain to critics their methodology, why it was sound, why they felt the benefits of publishing outweighed the harm.
I agree with you: it is okay to tell students to slow down and think; in fact it’s our obligation. It’s not that we’re telling them what to think, we’re just asking them to think.
I found a list of 10 questions on the Poynter Web site we as advisers can pose to our students in situations such as the one you describe:
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/everyday-ethics/talk-about-ethics/1750/ask-these-10-questions-to-make-good-ethical-decisions/#
Oh Hannah, I feel for you. There's nothing worse than being the new adviser. I've done it three separate times.
ReplyDeleteThe first time, I was taking over from a very lenient teacher--I had a few more restrictions about what could and should be put on-air (our radio station) per the FCC than the previous person. I tried to change things too fast and got a lot of backlash.
The second time I was again taking over from a favorite teacher. First, Ryan was the cute, young, new teacher. My girls thought he was hot--I didn't fit that. Second, Ryan had ZERO background in yearbook and journalism. He let the kids run him. The kids did what they wanted and how they wanted. Ryan had no say. I had to feel the pain of that. Kids went to administration when I told them things weren't appropriate or covered well enough to run in our paper. When they wanted a special class before school, I said, "No. I stay late most nights and don't want to volunteer to teach an independent study course and go against the union to do so." I was over-ruled--long story.
The third time I took on a publication, it was the newspaper. This was a pleasant experience. The kids knew me--the yearbook and newspaper kids always shared lab space and often late-night and fieldtrips. Additionally, the teacher before me was incredibly strict about how the paper was run. When stories weren't done or correctly formatted, she would fix them herself and then yell at the kids. I'm not a yeller--although I think I've perfected the guilt trip.
In any case, and in each experience, I had to build trust with students and staff. People needed to know I was on their side--I wasn't out to get teachers or bother their classes, if I didn't have to. I let students have a lot of say, but I tried to guide them. You're correct in that ethics are the key. Conducting a lesson or unit on ethics is a sad experience--I tried it for two years. Kids often don't think they're doing anything wrong, so long as they're not caught....however, put them in the real world with real situations that affect real people, and they can have empathy, concern, and logic all play together. Kids are strange--they're young and their brains are not fully developed. They don't usually know how to think about people other than themselves. As adults, this is hard to think about--we're always forced to think of others--it's our job! But for kids, it's foreign. We need to walk them through the questions they need to ask before the pursue a story. As you said, just because they can get info, should they print it?
I do not envy your first year as an adviser, but I know, from experience, that experiences like this one are what make you a better teacher, adviser, and most importantly, person.
Jamie Nusbaum
Sheboygan North HS
Sheboygan, Wis.
Well-put, Jamie.
DeleteThanks for sharing, Hannah. This is a great case study for the journalism ethics books. On one hand, the guiding principal of "do no harm" would definitely apply. On the other hand, if the teacher with the C deserved to be singled out, then it seems like the story was otherwise very well executed. It reminds me of the scene in "All the President's Men" where the attorney general threatens to sever ties and Woodward observes, "We don't have a relationship!"
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story, Hannah! I inherited a program from a very well-known teacher who had been teaching journalism for years. She retired. The program was strong, the kids knew what they were doing, and I literally could have drooled at my desk that first year and the paper would have still gotten out each month. I spent the year learning everything I could from the students. Year two and three I had a bit more of an idea of what I was doing (and year four I will have MUCH more of an idea of what I'm doing after all I've learned here!), but only last year did I really start to feel like the program was starting to be mine. It takes time--time to figure things out, time to build those relationships with your students, time to get the school to trust that you know what you're doing. (Time to trust myself that I know what I'm doing!). This next year will be my first crop of seniors who started out with me in beginning journalism as freshmen. My seniors who just graduated were my first set of 10th grade staff reporters on the newspaper. These are the kinds of things that have helped me to feel more ownership for the program.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what I would do if my students wanted to publish grades of their teachers. We would have to talk it out. In Colo, state law says I can't pull anything from the paper. But I certainly can insist they think about the consequences of what they publish.
Thanks again for sharing!