Tenets of Responsible Journalism

6

6Tenets of Responsible Journalism

• 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

Posters and other materials available soon

And to supplement the principles………

JEA Adviser

Code of Ethics

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.• Emphasize the importance of

accuracy, balance and clarity in all

aspects of news gathering and

reporting.

• Show trust in students as they

carry out their responsibilities by

encouraging and supporting them in

a caring learning environment.

JEA Adviser

Code of Ethics

• 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.• Journalism Education

Association, 2000

JEA

principles

Prior review is a weapon in the arsenal of

censorship, and the Journalism Education

Association opposes its use in

America’s schools

• 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.

• 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.

Go to Web site with teaching materials

JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission

http://jeapressrights.org