Law, Ethics and News Literacy
Broadcast
Being a journalist in today's political climate means knowing your rights and the laws that protect you. For me, these situations come up in the most unexpected ways. I learned to expect and demand to be taken seriously thanks to laws made for student journalists.
Gaggle in our schools
This year, our district implemented AI-based safety software. Gaggle sifts through student material on the Google suite of products, including Google Docs, Drive and Gmail, looking for concerning content. After being flagged, that content is sent to a Gaggle employees for a quick review after which alerts are sent to school administrators.
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My reporting has described how Gaggle has flagged and removed the images of student photographers. While clothing seems to be the issue triggering these removals, the clothing students are wearing in the images wouldn’t violate our school dress codes. In addition, our reporting helped prompt concerns that the removal of images could violate the rights of students — an issue we believe the district is now working to resolve by improving its processes.
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However, student journalists like me have concerns about our shared Google Drive being subject to Gaggle as well. This sparked tough conversations with administrators about how this can affect our staff and the work we do. Between compromising confidential sources and stories that could potentially be flagged by Gaggle, we knew this could impact our staff. We recently presented our concerns about potential legal issues.
As a part of a larger collection of reporting, I wrote this story about the impact of Gaggle flagging student photography in advanced and AP level courses. Graphic by Morgan Salisbury
Bringing the issue to our district
This semester, my fellow editors and I have been working towards finding a solution to remove our journalism staff drive from Gaggle's scans. We believe that the scans of student journalists' drives consistently violates our First Amendment rights, mainly when it comes to our private notes and confidential sources.
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Starting in November we began emailing our head of technology and communications. On March 6, we presented to a group of district leaders about our concerns, citing cases we felt had similar issues with restriction of student journalists' First Amendment rights.
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Our district is giving us a timeline of their plan going forward at the end of March. Myself and my fellow editors working alongside me are willing to take legal action in conjunction with the Student Press Law Center if necessary.
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The AI experiment project
In the fall, my adviser led a class at the National High School Journalism Convention in Boston, during which we presented our findings about AI and its place in journalism.
Our editors have experimented with AI for editing purposes and staff bonding games, but we note that AI can raise ethical problems for journalists.
School board candidate forum
In October, I helped plan and moderate a candidate forum for our school board candidates. Held at my school, we got all candidates running for five open seats to come to the event. We planned questions ahead of time, marketed with a graphic I created for social media and emailed staff and families. I prepared by collecting candidate bios and statements and creating handouts featuring the candidates. Held strategically during parent-teacher conferences, we managed to get a good-sized audience to watch candidates speak on issues we knew families would care most about.
This experience helped me venture more into the often intimidating realm of local politics. This marked an especially important election after board members slashed school budgets and voted to close two schools last year, raising tensions in the community. We solicited questions in addition to the questions we wrote in advance, and we received many comments from parents and teachers that we asked questions that pushed candidates to be more candid than other debates this year. We strove to keep the candidates on topic and to hold them to time limits.
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Questions ranged from impacts of device switchovers to discussions of student and staff mental health. Overall, it was a good experience to practice planning with local politicians as well as public speaking.
As a staff, we also emphasize the importance of copyright. At the beginning of each semester, staffers must read and sign a five-page manual outlining how the staff can use their protected work.
Teaching staff about their rights
The laws that protect journalists can be tricky, and many newer reporters on our staff often have no idea about the protection they have.
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Whether it's an editorial a staffer wants to write but is scared of backlash or an adult trying to take someone's photos, I have been adamant in my three years on staff that we have laws to protect us. We fully use those laws and turn to the Student Press Law Center when we need support to help tell the stories we think should be told.
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After having contacted the SPLC about potential issues in my own writing a few times, it helped show my staff even more that sometimes reporting is bigger than what we think.
As a staff, we also emphasize the importance of copyright. At the beginning of each semester, staffers must read and sign a five-page agreement outlining how the staff can use their protected work.
Covering elections and board meetings
Covering school board meetings and local government hearings was my first taste of covering something heavily intertwined with the law.
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After familiarizing myself, I started recruiting and teaching staffers about procedures and our rules for live covering an event. I even make sure my staff is familiar with local government and what is going on in our community. I’ve learned to navigate open meetings and open records laws while reporting on news crucial to our community.
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This photo was taken at 12:08 a.m. on a Monday night after a school board meeting during which the decision was made to close two elementary schools. We're showing the story we wrote on a deadline, exhausted after such a long meeting, but proud of the work we had done.