Update on free expression bill

The folks over at J-Ideas -- housed at Ball State University in Indiana -- have updated their Senate Bill 6449 story, and it includes quite a few relevant quotes from interested parties.

Most interesting is this quote from the Association of Washington School Principals, which vigorously opposed House Bill 1307 last year:

For this year's bill, Communications Spokesperson Jocelyn McCabe said the organization's members are talking with each other to disuss their thoughts on the bill, which generated "lots of debate" last year.

"We have been working with the WJEA since the end of session last year and have made good progress on this issue," McCabe said. "The legislation has prompted some good discussions between students, advisers and administrators about roles and responsibilities, and we’ve appreciated the opportunity to share the principal’s perspective on student press issues."

P-I's Monica Guzman agrees to keynote WJEA state conference

We at WJEA hope you're getting geared up to attend the annual WJEA State Journalism Conference -- now less than two months away on Saturday, March 15, at Auburn High School -- because we sure are. Today, we secured the conference's keynote speaker: Monica Guzman, online reporter extraordinaire from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Guzman is most well known for her prolific contributions to the P-I's Big Blog, "a rolling digest of the best in news, culture and entertainment." She's a self-described "product of her wired generation" -- that's her Facebook profile picture to the right -- and is fired up about getting to speak to the next generation of journalists. From her bio:

Monica Guzman is the P-I's first online reporter and the main contributor to its new online project, the Big Blog.

Monica joined the P-I in January as a Hearst Newspapers Fellow, covering the culture of technology in a weekly column and a blog, Net Native.

A product of her wired generation, Monica obsesses over her Facebook profile and can't remember what life was like before e-mail. She calls it a good afternoon when she can tinker with her piano and her Ibanez and a good evening when she can get out and enjoy the nightlife. A huge film fan, Monica will often cry at movies people have no business crying in and has been known to get moody if she doesn't see at least one movie in a theater every week. She can't cook, but she's trying.

Monica has worked previously at the Houston Chronicle, the Midland Daily News in Michigan and Foster's Daily Democrat in New Hampshire, covering police and breaking news, higher education and arts and entertainment.

You can watch her on KOMO/4 News at 4:20 p.m. and listen in to KOMO 1000 radio at 4:45 p.m. on Wednesdays, when she rounds up the news that's got Seattle talking.

Monica holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

Registration forms will be available on wjea.net soon, so be looking for those. In the meantime, we'll be working hard to line up all the session speakers for the conference. We'll pass those along as we get confirmations.

Free expression bill referred back to judiciary

All the speculation was for naught, as the Senate K-12 committee referred Senate Bill 6449 -- the Student Free Expression Bill -- back to the Senate Judiciary Committee without comment this morning.

Three of the sponsors of the bill -- primary sponsor Joe McDermott (D-Seattle), and secondary sponsors Adam Kline (D-Seattle) and Brian Weinstein (D-Mercer Island) -- are on the judiciary committee. Kline is the committee chair.

The members of that K-12 committee are as follows. Clicking on each senator's name will take you to a page where you can contact that senator. You can also look up your own district's senator by clicking here.

Senate Judiciary Committee

• Adam Kline - Chair (D-37th District, Seattle)
• Rodney Tom - Vice Chair (D-48th District, Bellevue)
• Bob McCaslin - Ranking Minority Member (R-4th District, Spokane Valley)
• Mike Carrell (R-28th District, Lakewood)
• James Hargrove (D-24th District, Hoquiam)
• Joe McDermott (D-34th District, Seattle)
• Pam Roach (R-31st District, Auburn)
• Brian Weinstein (D-41st District, Mercer Island)

Washington Post commentary takes Hazelwood to task

Given the spirit of the season with Senate Bill 6449, I thought I'd pass along this great piece that ran in the Washington Post a week ago. If only everyone in the professional media felt this way.

Writes Richard Just, deputy editor of the New Republic:

My own experiences have convinced me that today, the vast majority of students are unable to practice true journalism at their high school papers. For the past six summers, I have directed a program for about 20 high school journalists at Princeton University. All the students are talented writers and thoughtful intellectuals. Yet, by and large, they work for newspapers that are either explicitly censored or restrained by the looming threat of official disapproval -- newspapers that read more like school-sponsored news releases than true journalism. Many have been taught to write fluffy profiles of teachers and to celebrate the achievements of their sports teams; fewer have been encouraged to challenge, to criticize or to investigate. Perhaps the most important part of our program's curriculum is to help students unlearn the instincts they have acquired at their high school newspapers.

And then, the kicker -- an argument many of us have been making for years.

No high school principal would dream of telling the basketball team that it could run drills but not play games, or permit the drama club to rehearse but never to stage shows. Yet, thanks in part to Hazelwood, many high schools train their students in journalism without allowing them to truly practice it.

Bill assigned to K-12 committee; two more senators sign on

In what was an unexpected twist today, the Student Free Expression Bill -- SB6449 -- was assigned to the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee. It had been expected that the bill would be referred to the judiciary committee as it was last year.

The good news is that primary sponsor of the bill, Sen. Joe McDermott (D-Seattle), is on that committee, as is secondary sponsor Sen. Brian Weinstein (D-Mercer Island). Perhaps even better news is that the chair of that committee, Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe (D-Seattle, pictured right), has been added today as a secondary sponsor, as has Sen. Karen Keiser (D-Kent).

High schools were stripped from the bill in the senate judiciary committee last year, so perhaps a change of venue bodes well for the bill being sent to the floor.

The members of that K-12 committee are as follows. Clicking on each senator's name will take you to a page where you can contact that senator. You can also look up your district's senator by clicking here.

Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee

• Rosemary McAuliffe - Chair (D-1st District, Seattle)
• Rodney Tom - Vice Chair (D-48th District, Bellevue)
• Curtis King - Ranking Minority Member (R-14th District, Yakima)
• Dale Brandland (R-42nd District, Bellingham)
• Tracey Eide (D-30th District, Federal Way)
• Mike Hewitt (R-16th District, Walla Walla)
• Steve Hobbs (D-44th District, Lake Stevens)
• Janéa Holmquist (R-13th District, Moses Lake)
• Claudia Kauffman (D-47th District, Kent)
• Joe McDermott (D-34th District, Seattle)
• Eric Oemig (D-45th District, Kirkland)
• Marilyn Rasmussen (D-2nd District, Eatonville)
• Brian Weinstein (D-41st District, Mercer Island)
• Joseph Zarelli (R-18th District, Ridgefield)
  

Coalition, Sen. McDermott announce new student press rights legislation

The arrival of the 2008 legislative session means the return of legislation aimed at affirming and protecting student free expression, as the Coalition for Responsible Student Expression and Sen. Joe McDermott (D - Seattle, pictured right) announced the introduction of Senate Bill 6449.

The bill is nearly identical to the one that was passed by the House of Representatives last year, HB 1307, before high schools were stripped from the bill in committee in the Senate.

“Gaining experience in real life journalism is an important part of the learning process,” McDermott said. “This puts students that much closer to success in their professional careers.”

Supporting the bill is the Coalition for Responsible Student Expression, made up of 16 organizations, including WJEA, and the sponsor of HB 1307, Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D - Des Moines).

“I worry about a generation growing up without an appreciation of their constitutional rights and how to exercise those rights and responsibilities,” Upthegrove said. “One of the best ways to develop an appreciation of constitutional rights is to model and apply those constitutional freedoms in the school environment. This is why I introduced legislation last year, and why I will be supporting Sen. McDermott’s bill this year.”

Also sponsoring the bill are senators Adam Kline and Brian Weinstein -- both vocal supporters of the bill last year as members of the judiciary committee -- and senators Ed Murray and Jean Kohl-Welles.

Related links:

• Student free-expression bill resubmitted in Wash. Senate (SPLC)
• Washington state Senate to reintroduce student expression bill (J-Ideas)
• SB 6449 Home Page
• SB 6449
  

Mission statement of Coalition for Responsible Student Expression

Here is the full text of the mission statement of the Coalition for Responsible Student Expression. The coalition is supporting the passage of Senate Bill 6449, the senate incarnation of a student free expression bill:

"The Washington Coalition for Responsible Student Expression believes that student journalists should strive for accuracy, fairness and balance in order to achieve and maintain credibility and to bring to the public, as Walter Lippmann said, “a view of reality upon which the citizen can act.”

"Student journalists also must be responsible to the laws that govern the press – such as libel, invasion of privacy, copyright infringement and obscenity – and should strive to maintain the highest standards of journalistic ethics. Also, their work must not materially and substantially disrupt the school day.

"At the same time, student journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know, and they should be accountable to their readers, listeners, or viewers.

"A free student press reflects the intellectual health of a vibrant, dynamic school. It helps create a respect for diversity, provides a voice for students, and establishes a link between students and school officials.

"This coalition of concerned organizations and individuals support the First Amendment rights of student journalists and a strong, robust student press, not only in Washington state but across the nation."

Members of the coalition:

• Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington
• American Civil Liberties Union of Washington
• Association for Women in Communications – Seattle Professional Chapter
• Dow Jones Newspaper Fund
• J-Ideas
• Journalism Education Association
• Kent State University Center for Scholastic Journalism
• Poynter Institute for Media Studies
• Society of Professional Journalists – Western Washington Professional Chapter
• Student Press Law Center
• University of Washington – Department of Communication
• Washington Community College Journalism Association
• Washington Journalism Education Association
• Washington News Council
• Washington Newspaper Publishers Association
• Washington Student Lobby
  

Staff management issues

Why can't people see that a student publication should be run similar to a business? It's odd, I've told my staff that if people are to take us seriously, we need to act seriously. For whatever reason, though, the staff, more specifically the Editorial Board doesn't seem to get that.

I was curious if any other staffs have experienced this problem, and what they've done to alleviate it. I know that, short of screaming at them, I'm out of ideas.