Mike Hiestand discusses censorship and copyright at
the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute in Phoenix.
Today's speaker touched upon several concerns that I have toward taking over
our school newspaper. He gave us an insightful tour of the histories and
differences between the Tinker and Hazelwood court cases. Now I'm questioning
my school's classification because of his description of the practice of a
limited public forum versus a policy. I don't think my school has an official
policy. While I appreciate the idea of getting
one, I’m torn. Our past practices are so
inconsistent, one could make the argument toward prior review or limited public
forum. One past principal censored a
front page article several years ago, while others have just ‘expressed concern’ over content, and even the current principal of the past four years has gone
back and forth on the issue. One month
he’ll say he just wants to see it ahead of time to know what will be printed,
other times he’s content to get the printed issue with the rest of the student
body.
I also feel much more comfortable to approach my students on their unrestricted
and remorseless use of Google for images.
Mike’s comments and resources offer me a new way to prevent that issue
from occurring in the first place. He
made points on copyright and student produced work that I had never thought
about. I never realized that reprinting
work from previous issues needed copyright consent from the original
creator. Again, another excellent idea
for the first day of school I need to prepare.
In our small policy groups, I also got a ton of ideas from my group members on certain codes of conduct and respect protocol. Thanks Eva. Julieanne also gave me great ideas toward a rights, rules and responsibilities policy book for staff. It's especially nice to have something to fail back on when you need kick off or fail that unproductive member on staff. Today made for a very productive morning.
Brandon Michaud
Winnacunnet High School
Hampton, N.H.
Brandon, have you looked into what your school district policies might be? Are they available online?
ReplyDeleteMy experience so far has been that administrators will want to follow district policies, so if the district is more open than the admin, that might help you. If they are less open, that is good to know as well.
For copyright, I think SPLC might have a quiz online.
I hope your first year being the formal advisor is a good one!
Bonnie
You're welcome Brandon!
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to help in any way that I can. My code of conduct is simple, however, the students seem to understand it and abide accordingly. I choose not to bog them down with a bunch of wording that they'll probably never remember, but to provide basic things that will be understood without question.
Eva D. Coleman
Frisco ISD Career and Technical Education Center
Frisco, Texas