Mar 16, 2020 3 min read

Student newspapers and broadcasts can foster future journalists.

“We stress the First Amendment,” said Chuck Durso, who has taught English and journalism in Uniontown Area High School for 12 years. “And we stress that of everything in the First Amendment, the right to a free press is most important to the endurance of a free democratic society.”

Durso said a recent proposal that gives those student journalists the right to report the district’s news without administrators having the right to spike a story is “absolutely” important for fledgling reporters.

Montgomery County state Rep. Melissa Shusterman, a Democrat, introduced a bill to protect the rights of those students in reporting their school’s news. A similar bill was proposed in the state Senate, and both have been referred to education committees.

The bill prohibits a “school official” from “participating in the approval of school-sponsored media before the publication or broadcast of the school-sponsored media.” It shifts approval of content to a student editor.

Shusterman proposed the bill after she was approached by high school students – students in the early part of their quest to report news and explore ideas, even if those ideas may challenge those in authority. She said the students who came to her were in a high school that supported student journalists. They were concerned, though, that such support may not extend to all schools, and so they wanted to act.

That’s not to say that student journalists and their student-media advisor, who would also be protected under the proposal, can write whatever they want. The bill does not protect “unauthorized expression,” including libel and “inciting students to commit an unlawful act.”

Yet, Shusterman said, high school student-journalists are not too young to deserve the same protections as their adult counterparts in the profession.

“High school students can go to war, buy a car, buy insurance, have jobs,” she said. “They’re a crucial part of our future – and I think their opinion is equally important.”

Durso, who worked in radio and television for 20 years prior to teaching, said students’ views of journalism tend to be neutral, though sometimes, he said, the feelings lean toward the negative – possibly absorbing feelings around them.

“Many of our political leaders are portraying journalism as the ‘enemy of the people’,” Durso noted.

Durso said that when scheduling permits, students in his class work together with students studying digital media with Tammy Marzano, digital media arts instructor at the high school. In one of Marzano’s classes, students work together to assemble the online publication, Tomahawk Talk.

He acknowledged how the changing nature of journalism makes it difficult to predict the form students’ work might take in the future. He said blogging, for instance, can be a “legitimate form of journalism” – but not always.

What’s important regardless of the form, he said, is that students are following sound journalistic practices, which he described as including “getting information painstakingly” and following tight procedures of “verification.”

Those practices remain vital, he said, amid the shape-shifting evolution of the media.

“As long as you’re following the rules, the means (of expression) are not as important,” he said.