Installment+29

South of Denver - Chapter 29

February 18, 2006

Issue #5 had been out for a day, and the newspaper class of 22 gathered during seventh hour to critique. I only mention 22 because last semester we struggled along with 11 total staff members. Registration numbers for next year indicate that the staff of The Rock will grow to 40 each semester. It all sounds like great news.

But with rapid growth in numbers comes the problem of training so many new kids on desktop publishing and basic production mechanics, along with educating kids about law and ethics, narrative story telling and various types of persuasion. A good problem to have, but it makes these critiques critical in our development as a newspaper. We spend at least 90 minutes going over what worked, what didn't, style errors, grammar errors, design bloopers, great leads, wacky leads. There's little time to waste.

So, our first area of discussion?

"Student council is mad at us again," Megan said.

One of our new staff members, Chris, had written a rather scathing commentary about the student council's new "semi-parliamentary" system for elections. The whole scheme is quite Byzantine, but the bottom line is that 74 students will meet in early March to choose the candidates for various student council offices. They are all volunteers and include the 36 students currently on student council. The gist of the piece was that this was undemocratic.

Chris had a source within student council who is adamantly opposed to this set up, but he referred to him/her only as "Pat" in the commentary. Evidently, during student council class that morning, the sponsor and students had unearthed the "mole" in their midst. It turned out to be the student body president. According to Sarah, the only newspaper staff member also in student council, it had gotten a bit ugly, with calls for impeachment or resignation.

None of this was to surprising to me, as I had received an e-mail from the student council sponsor earlier that day indicating that the kids on student council felt they "were always being attacked by the newspaper."

I thought about firing back with loads of facts about all the positive press student government has received in the past two years, but decided that seemed defensive and wimpy.

Here is my e-mail reply: "Honestly, the student council kids need to develop thicker skins. Leaders take crap sometimes, and often it's unfair, but it goes with the job. They also get tons of credit and applause, and deservedly so.

"The staff of the student newspaper often takes heat from people, and the kids often point out how unfair those criticisms can be at times. My job is to get them to a) get over it; and b) make absolutely sure the criticisms are not valid before simply ignoring them. I like to remind journalism students that they will make their mistakes in front of hundreds of readers. Student Council members face the same challenge. But that's what makes both activities exciting and rewarding.

"The student press is modeled on the professional press, and one of the prime responsibilities of the professional press is to be our watchdog on government. It would be an insult to student council if the student newspaper ignored our school government, or simply ran mindless 'happy news.'

"Anyway, I will continue to encourage the newspaper staff to be fair in our coverage of all activities at RCHS."

And here is what I said to the newspaper staff: "I know they are not happy, but here is the more important point for us: what do we really know about how student council operates, how decisions are made? I mean beyond anonymous sources? Let's make it our job to become experts in how our student government works so that when it is time to criticize a decision, we are working from an abundance of information. I don't think we understand student government, and how can we possibly educate our readers about it, or provide leadership? I don't really mind if kids in student government are unhappy with something in the paper. I do mind when we have poorly covered one of our prime responsibilities."

As I finished my latest rant, it occurred to me that this new staff was not yet convinced that student government really was an important beat.

But Susie and Kathleen (a new staff member) volunteered to attend the March election meeting as reporters.

Maybe in our March 15 issue, we will be just a little better educated and provide a little better coverage. Getting better. That's a goal we can all agree upon.

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon High School

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

 jkkennedy@comcast.net

 jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org

Note: This is the latest chapter in a series of columns on working with a young staff in a young school (this semester we are up to 22 staff members and we have no senior class). It is cryptotherapy for me. It may occasionally provide something positive for you. Please go to the JEAHELP archives to read the previous chapters if you missed them and have absolutely nothing else to do.