Law & Ethics
Being an ethical and law-abiding journalist means...
Using Your Voice
Honesty is the Best Policy
Right Way or the High Way
Using Your Voice
One of the first things we learn as journalists is how to use our voices in a way that allows us to share what we feel is important without infringing on the rights of others. This is part of our basic first amendment rights as citizens of the United States, but while these are "givens," there are still road blocks which can make it difficult to do just that as a student journalist.
Some of this has to do with what it is we cover and how. As journalists, we want to cover big stories, but we also have to remember that we have to make it palatable for our audiences. At Crown Point High School, we are lucky not to have prior review for our work, but that is because we work hard to craft angles that are relevant to students, don't include bias and still cover big topics. Some of these have been things like vaping, human trafficking, the 2020 election, and COVID-19 vaccinations.
There are some who feel that these topics are too big for "student" journalists and that we are not qualified enough to report on them, but I beg to differ. I believe we would be doing a disservice to our school and student body if we didn't re[ort on these topics. We deserve to have a voice and use it to help our audience stay informed and educated about things happening in the community around them.
Honesty is the Best Policy
As journalists, we have a duty to convey information without bias, and that we don't plagiarize other people's work. Some of this experience comes with quotes and others of it is making sure you are being accurate with what you are reporting.
I know that there have been stories in the past that I've wanted to work on that I would have been too involved in, and it would have prevented me from being the best journalist I could be. I would have spent more time writing "my" story instead of the story we were really working on. And that is okay. Just because something sounds just perfect for you doesn't mean it always is. The goal first and foremost is to report content accurately and effectively.
I think this also extends to photography. Just because someone else created an image or photo that is perfect for your story it doesn't mean it is okay for you to use it. There are time where something looked just perfect, but because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't taking someone else's craft from them without their permission, I created something of my own that did a similar job without any of the plagiarism.
The Right Way or the High Way
Another part of being a journalist is always doing things 100%. There are no shortcuts in good journalism and that can sometimes be a struggle when a story is falling through or when you are designing and you think something looks "good" but maybe it isn't "great."
I think one of the best example of this is my sophomore year and my first year on staff. That year was extremely rough because not only did we end up going virtual due to COVID-19, but I had an abnormal amount of stories fall through on me, some of them days before we were set to publish. You would think this would deter me as a journalist, but I knew that part of the job is that things don't always go to plan. This is why we have plans A, B, C, D, all the way to Z. I could have tried to salvage those stories and still have it published, but in the end it wasn't just that—a story. We had to take steps to make sure we had quality work to publish and not just something written for the sake of publishing. If that meant that the story was scrapped, the story was scrapped. I was never mad about it, but it did teach me a good lesson about being a journalist. You always have to do things the right way or you are walking the high road which will get you nowhere.