The law and high school journalism

Mike Hiestand of Student Press Law Center speaks at the Reynolds Institute for High School Journalism Teachers.

   At lunch I asked Mike Hiestand about the flag of my high school's newspaper. Above the publication name, I have the words "a student newspaper." Being from Oregon, the fact that it is a open forum state, really makes things easier for me than for many people in the institute who are from other states. He suggested adding the word edited so next year it will say above the title of the paper: "a student edited paper." Of course this is in addition to a full editorial policy.
   As far as an editorial policy, I now have lots of ideas how to improve the policy for my paper. The lunchtime session was very helpful for this.
   I also like the idea of spending more time at the beginning of the year having the editorial staff make connections with administrators in the building. To do this, we might invite administrators to lunch. Students could then introduce themselves and do some type of presentations about their goals and the goals of the paper for the year. This could really help during the year when students need to make contact with administration about a story being worked on. Administration would know how seriously students take their role in the school and producing solid journalism. I have never done this before, but it could become a useful tradition.
   Got a lot of really good ideas today.

Greg Cantwell
Sheldon High School
Eugene, OR