Tenets of Responsible Journalism

1. Tenets of Responsible Journalism 6 • Establish policies that empower effective reporting • Build better citizens through critical thinking • Hire trained advisers who use sound curricula • Open lines of communication among all parties • Provide strong content through accuracy, diverse sources • Present content in verbal, visual context 6

2. Posters and other materials available soon

3. And to supplement the principles………

4. Media advisers will: • Model standards of professional journalistic conduct to students, administrators and others. • Empower students to make decisions of style, structure and content by creating a learning atmosphere where students will actively practice critical thinking and decision making. • Encourage students to seek out points of view and to explore a variety of information sources in their decision making. • Ensure students have a free, robust and active forum for expression without prior review or restraint. JEA Adviser Code of Ethics • Emphasize the importance of accuracy, balance and clarity in all aspects of newsgathering and reporting.

5. • Show trust in students as they carry out their responsibilities by encouraging and supporting them in a caring learning environment. • Remain informed on press rights and responsibilities. • Advise, not act as censors or decision makers. • Display professional and personal integrity in situations which might be construed as potential conflicts of interest. • Support free expression for others in local and larger communities. • Model effective communications skills by continuously updating knowledge of media education. JEA Adviser Code of Ethics • Journalism Education Association, 2000

6. JEA principles • JEA believes students should make final decisions of content for all student media. • JEA believes prior review has no educational value and inhibits open dialogue and exchange of ideas. • JEA believes prior review negates the educational value of a trained, professionally active adviser and teacher working with students in a counseling, educational environment. Prior review simply makes the teacher an accessory, as if what is taught really does not matter. • JEA believes prior review, as well as restraint, gives school officials, who are the government, the power to decide in advance what people will read or know. Such officials are potential newsmakers and their involvement with the newsmaking process can interfere with the public’s right to know. • JEA believes prior review establishes the possibility of viewpoint discrimination which destroys a free marketplace of ideas where a community can be fully informed and undermines all pretext of responsible journalism. Prior review is a weapon in the arsenal of censorship, and the Journalism Education Association opposes its use in America’s schools

7. • JEA believes prior review leads toward self-censorship, the most chilling and pervasive form of censorship in schools. Fear like this will eliminate any chance of critical thinking and the development of active, inquiring citizenship. • JEA believes learning must be a dynamic process, one in which an adviser helps students but does not make decisions for them. • JEA believes advisers should trust students as they carry out their responsibilities of accurate, complete and thorough journalism without administrative interference. • JEA believes student journalists must be accorded the same freedoms and responsibilities as their commercial counterparts and that these students must be provided with accurate information on their rights and responsibilities. • JEA believes censorship or unwarranted administrative interference with the journalistic process is the last resort of an educational system failing its present and future citizens.

8. JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission http://jeapressrights.org Go to Web site with teaching materials