Where Journalism Begins
As a community, we will leave to these high school students the environmental and societal problems we can’t figure out how to fix. That’s why we need to teach them the importance of public service. That’s what high-school journalism teaches.
Consider this: The students on the Pepperbox hear from their school that the paper isn’t necessary. They hear from the outside world that there is no future for newspapers. They likely hear from their parents that there will be no future jobs for them in newspapers. Yet they fight to keep alive a newspaper class that forces them to work harder than any other class they take.
Our Founding Fathers put freedom of speech and press, right after freedom of religion, as the most important rights Americans have. School newspapers give students real life lessons about their First Amendment rights: In 2008, the principal at Eureka High pulled issues of the Redwood Bark off racks because he was concerned about an artistic drawing the students published that included the figure of nude woman. He later apologized to the student body. In 2007, Pepperbox students had to respond to a widespread backlash from the student body after they published a student letter that argued that homosexuality was immoral.
Protect the Pepperbox. And bring back Paw Prints. Our publicly funded school systems need to recognize that classes that encourage expression and teach the responsibilities that come with that First Amendment right should be the last ones cut from the school curriculum.
Marcy Burstiner is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Humboldt State University.
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on the cover
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Today
44th Annual Kinetic Grand Championship Race
STAFF PICK / events, art, outdoors, sports, for kids, free / 9 a.m.-6 p.m. A 3-day, 42-mile kinetic sculpture race over land, sand, mud and water! LeMans start at the Noon Whistle on the Arcata Plaza. Follow the race through Manila, Eureka and into Ferndale on Memorial Day for the Glorious Finish. kineticgrandchampionship.com. 889-3024.
Flow 2012 Fashion Show
STAFF PICK / events / 8 p.m. Arcata Theatre Lounge, 1036 G St. Student designed and produced clothing. Fundraiser for Arcata Arts Institute. $35/$25 students. artsinstitute.net. 822-1220.
Woodside Preschool's Rummage/Bake Sale
events / 8 a.m.-noon. Woodside Preschool, 900 Hodgson St, Eureka. www.woodsidepreschool.com. 445-9132.
Lanphere Dunes Restoration
STAFF PICK / outdoors / 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Meet at Pacific Union School. Help remove non-native invasives at the Lanphere Dunes Unit of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Tools and gloves provided, wear work clothes and bring water. Carpool to the protected site. 444-1397.
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SEVEN Comments
Comment / By Anon / June 3, 1:25 p.m.
“I can’t think of many things scarier than a high school journalist.”
Really? How about being diagnosed with a terminal dissease? A plane crash. The BP oil spill. The state of the economy.
Oh, and pretentious journalism professors.
Comment / By Steve O’Donoghue / June 4, 7:10 a.m.
Well said. Recent research also shows students in journalism score higher on the ACT and earn higher GPAs in college. Most important, journalism kids show more civic engagement in their communities. It is short sited to cut these programs without evaluating their overall contribution to the school and community.
Comment / By argh-o-nott / June 4, 8:45 a.m.
“Our Founding Fathers put freedom of speech and press, right after freedom of religion, as the most important rights Americans have.” YOU ARE SO DUMB. The FF feared a free society, one with a voice. They did not want democracy and also did not like the Constitution at all, but thought that it would do for the moment and the plan was to go back and rewrite it in the near future. Didn’t happen. Marcy, it’s people like you that are part of the reason the news industry is going through such a painful metamorphosis. You need to stop aiming your snipes at the rest of the world and start looking at yourself. All cultures and religions on the planet teach the Golden Rule. You must have missed all that, what with growing up in a cave raised by retards.
Comment / By Carny Asada / June 4, 9:50 a.m.
Great column, Marcy. And: Interesting application of the Golden Rule, there, Argh-o-nott. Maybe you should try the Four-Way Test instead.
Comment / By Brian / June 4, 10:43 a.m.
Perhaps the best, most coherent argument for a free scholastic press I’ve read in a long time.
I love the courage of the anonymous poster who mentions the BP disaster and things like plane crashes and the economy, without acknowledging how he/she knows about them. It’s journalists who get those stories. They ask the questions and get the photos.
Schools are quick to require that students learn about government in theory, but also quick to prevent students from practicing it.
I’m never prouder than when I see an administration that encourages young journalists to be critical thinkers and ask tough questions about their environment. With the help of a good adviser, it’s a win-win: students learn how to think and analyze, and administrators can get a perspective they would never hear. That takes guts on both sides, and improvements end up happening all ‘round.
It’s a noble profession with noble beginnings. Let’s keep protecting those beginnings.
Comment / By a geek / June 4, 4:50 p.m.
I graduated highschool in 1993, and was part of the newspaper my sophomore through senior years…our school’s newspaper wasn’t produced through a class but more of a “club” that met casually every day and pretty much whenever…members could get a key without question if they wanted to work weekends etc. We produced a four page paper every week without fail, and a double sized issue once a month. News, editorial, features and sports. It often came down to a crunch but we got it done and it was great. No cliqueness, that’s an adult projection. Put some “popular” and “unpopular” students in a room together and they’ll mix well, especially to accomplish a common task. But that’s beside the following point….
Our editor in chief, also an english teacher, was very intelligent and dedicated…he’d somehow worked out a deal with the community college so that students would get college credit for successful participation in the “journalism class”…I forget the details, but it was something like one unit per year of participation with the paper. Not much by itself, but after three years it equaled a full 3 unit class. So…all things considered, I think something similar could/should be applied to students working for such a universally beneficial and mentally challenging activity on their own free time.
Comment / By Anonymous / June 6, 10:21 p.m.
Look how far the media has fallen since it took down Richard M. Nixon, and showed us those gory photos of Vietnam until it finally ended, or that once provided working families with a “labor section” in most community newspapers that reminded us where the weekend came from.
250,000 Americans are losing their homes every month since January, 2009, as the U.S. falls below Slovenia in infant mortality…Yet, it’s not front page news!?
The Regional Census Office in Eureka had to send out postcards begging for employees…probably due to the rural economic evacuations taking place throughout America.
The NCJ covers an interesting story several times a year, and that looks GREAT compared to the Times Standard’s journalistic wasteland.
Thank you Mavin.
Unfortunately, once student’s taste the excitement of real reporting, they’ll have to suppress the skill to survive in today’s “newsrooms”. Having reviewed 40 years of HSU’s Lumberjack newspaper, they’ve never bothered to look at the depositions in countless lawsuits filed by HSU students, professors and staff wrongfully terminated, harassed and denied due-process, that continues to this day. Lawsuits filed right here in Humboldt County that could teach more about the campus “community” and society than 4 years of sociology, anthropology and psychology combined.
A wily journalist could earn their PhD documenting the hundreds of millions of dollars annually wasted on lawyers and secret settlements used by the CSU administrations to maintain a hostile and byzantine system of political/paternalistic favoritism. Administrators lose or settle over 95% of the lawsuits filed. For example, with a Romanesque wave of his thumb, HSU’s incompetent Athletic Director terminated longtime track coach Tom Wood resulting in a $250,000 taxpayer payout.
Despite HSU’s budget travails, this Athletic Director had the leisure time to run a political campaign and win a seat on the Northern Humboldt Unified School District…currently overseeing the elimination of campus newspapers…
It’s not their money…and there’s NO ACCOUNTABILITY.