California removes prior restraint in school newspapers,
Could this unrestricted freedom of press travel down windy path?
Unlimited freedom of speech in student newspapers is not a good idea, and the lack of censorship puts the school on dangerous grounds. The school risks letting the information in the newspapers create imminent threats to safety and even generate hypothetically harmful ideas, all in the good spirit of protecting the speakers’ speech first. Not to mention, schools will have to manage the risk of taking liability for tortious content printed in the school newspaper, making unlimited freedom even more hazardous.
In an effort to give school newspapers unlimited freedom of speech, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill on Sept. 28. This bill protects high school and college advisers from receiving administrative retaliation against students’ speech.1 As a result, school administrators in California have no right to prior review or prior restraint when dealing with school-sponsored student newspapers.
Proponents of this legislative would give accolades to the Governor for protecting the work environment for the staff members, especially college professors and high school journalism teachers. Moreover, students can breathe easier now that they can write as passionately as they want and not get in trouble as long as the Governor’s signature on the bill doesn’t smudge. In reality, the newspaper has multiple sections. The news pages tell the facts as plain as white wallpaper. The opinions sections throws in more seasoning and jargon to argue for or against the facts. Frankly, people have a right to use the press to deliver their message in whichever form they want.
Of course, the minimal responsibilities as student journalists are to be ethical and keep out the lewd or obscene writing. They must keep in mind their audience, but it isn’t their job to predict how much the audience can handle. The readers aren’t a captive audience. They can choose not to read the newspaper. After all, the First Amendment with regards to the freedom of speech, should protect the speakers’ right to express an idea above the recipients’ right not to be offended. Wait, a minute. There is no such thing as the right not to be offended. In a marketplace of ideas, one always risks getting offended. That’s just the trade-off for the plethora of freedoms that we privileged Americans all possess.
Moreover, here’s another support case for those who oppose prior review and restraint of school-sponsored newspapers. In the Novato Unified School District v. Smith case,2 a Latino students’ parents complained to the school that an article entitled “Immigration” was offensive. After the school sent home letters saying the editorial should not have been published for its “racially inflammatory statements,” a father and a high school student filed a lawsuit against the school saying they violated their First Amendment rights. This court held in favor of the father and student based on the idea that no matter how provocative a students' printed speech is, it can't be pulled because the article doesn't disrupting the operation of the school. The court wouldn't possibly favor crude speech. This is clearly creating dissent from an ethnic minority. These types of articles need more discretion in a diverse student population because some people do take personal offense. However, my argument supporting prior restraint loses in this court case. A key factor to remember is that speech can be as offensive as long as it doesn’t harm anyone and no one is at risk.
Now to rip apart the proponents’ fluff, I want to emphasize a couple key bullet points. The moment one gives over unlimited power without censorship to another, there may be self-serving interests involved in the second party. On Sept. 30, the California appeals court overturned a judge’s ruling to prevent The Orange County Register from writing a story about the trial, in which the newspaper was a defendant.3 Even though this paper reported on a true court case, there needs to be a line drawn between what is newsworthy and what is self-coverage. If a school-sponsored newspaper had to decide whether or not a story about its own paper would make it to press, there should be no debate: don’t be the news you report.4 Texas Christian University’s Daily Skiff ran a story about its own newspapers being stolen. What happens physically to the newspaper should be left out of news coverage. Newspapers should act as a mediator between the news and the people-- essentially, newspapers should be nameless. As an adviser in this position, he or she should at least make available a variety of stories that come from the students instead of fawning over the paper’s own life story. So if there’s going to be no censorship on school newspapers, at least try to aim for diversity in its stories.
Not everything should be published. Students who write about knowing a way to hack into the school’s computer system should have no right to appear on a school-sponsored paper. If it does, the school should have the full authority to issue criminal investigations, depending on the legality of the content being discussed. The administrators can even target the student writers for their stories and take legal action. People may argue that there’s no real freedom of the press if students feel restrained from writing juicy stories that school or State authorities will attack despite any meaningful message or forewarning that the articles may deliver. In the Justin J. Boucher v. School Board of the District of Greenfield case,5 Boucher wrote an article about the computer security vulnerabilities in his high school. He alluded to the bad password systems and encouraged other classmates to exploit the school’s computer security vulnerabilities as long as they didn’t damage anything within the mainframe computer system. This article was asking to be pulled, but no one took the initiative to do a prior review. Stories that lead students to believe that their school’s security system is fallible immediately feel that their privacy is at risk. This story may cause an unnecessary disturbance in the student body. To prevent students from getting ideas from creative stories such as this, the administration needs to review certain articles first. In issues that will immediately put the school in potential danger, the administrators knows to make the more rational call on whether or not the story will make it to press.
Sources:
1 Calif. passes journalism adviser protection bill http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1817
2 Novato Unified School District v. Smith http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/trial-procedure-summary-judgment/11473083-1.html
3 Calif. appeals Court: Newspaper can cover own trial http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=20624
4 Stacks of Skiffs found in dumpsters http://www.tcudailyskiff.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=f3d0c629-ec23-4e74-9e5c-0113555305890
5 Justin J. Boucher v. School Board of the School District of Greenfield
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=7th&navby=docket&no=973433
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2 comments:
I wrote for my high school paper for three years during high school and have many opinions about this case.
I remember when I attended the Daily Illini's information nights early in the semester. I remember hearing that since the Daily Illini is an independent paper, it does not have to worry about getting punished for publishing something negative about the school. It can remain objective, not subjective. The downside is that the University does not sponsor or fund the paper and all of its money comes from advertisements.
For all that I know, all high school newspapers are funded by the school, at least mine was. I was always told to write objectively and not sound like a "cheerleader." Many times though the students sided with the school, especially for sports and club articles. They wrote about how awesome the team is or why not joining a certain organization will turn life into a bore.
But I do remember one specific example when a writer wrote a negative article about a winter dance we had. At my high school, Jacobs High School in Algonquin, the only dances were homecoming and prom. Each year the Student Council would try to organize a winter dance but it would always get cancelled because not enough people showed up. But my senior year it finally happened and the writer who covered the event said the people who went thought that it wasn't fun and that the Student Council did a poor job advertising it. I deserved some of the blame, after all I was the editor of the paper and let it go in, but Student Council was upset and the following month wrote an editorial about how wrong we were in it.
There also is a credibility issue for newspapers. Of course this law would allow school papers to write whatever they want, but does this count as trustworthy journalism? A few days ago I was shocked when I saw the word "fucking" in the DI. It was in that special Thursday section when the writer was describing some 40 year old actor he thought was very hot. This could affect a captive audience, obviously most of the DI's readers are college students who have lost their virgin ears, but by choosing to read the paper, people are not expecting to see the "f" word. A common sense rule of newspapers is that they should be clean and free of offensive language.
Finally, if students write a bunch of useless garbage for their school papers where they interview their best friends, make up quotes and use their own opinions, even though it is their freedom of the press it is not credible. Journalists need to be trusted that their writings are true and the readers can believe the print. It should be up to the people to decide by themselves, not the government.
Whereas, I remember Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada who broke the story about the Bay Area Labortory Co-Operative (BALCO)with Barry Bonds' steroid uses along with many other famous athletes (Marion Jones, Bill Romanowski, Jason Giambi among others). Their first article appeared the San Franciso Chronicle and later they authored Game of Shadows. It was very controversial but it was all true and they became credible investigative reporters.
-Adam Musto
I agree with the statement that signing a bill such as this maybe induce unlimited speech among young journalists. If the Governor of California feels like students are in need to having the freedom to write what they please without intervention from school administrators, this idea seems absurd! I find this article quite interesting because it almost contradicts what the purpose to protecting the public's interests with providing censorship, well at least through prior restraint. I can also relate by stating that I currently work for the Daily Illini, as Adam, and I would have to agree with the true statement of the Daily Illini being an independent newspaper. To my surprise this newspaper is no affiliated with the University of Illinois in any shape, way, or form. Therefore, we are allowed to say what we please about a wide variety of topics without receiving any lawsuits or by better yet, not offending anyone.
Furthermore, back to the law that was passed in California, you mentioned that certain articles should not be published. But who can decide if certain pieces of writing are offensive or not, or have the quality to be even be in a high school.
I can recall one incident that occurred in my school regarding a newspaper that had a title, such as the " Immigration" title in the case mentioned earlier. A high school journalist decided to title her article " Why do Blacks Get There Own Month?". This became an issue as soon as high school students got their hands on it, but my question was why was this title of an article released to the student body? Why did the school not intervene and say, maybe this title is hurtful and offensive to others? Luckily, the school later intervened and was forced to ban the article from school because they saw how angered students became after knowing the school allowed this. Even though the writer thought this was not offensive, it really did exceed her limits in what to say! If the new law applied to the state of Illinois, this title and the rest of the discriminatory article would not have been an issue. It is a very debatable topic varying from all different situations.
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