Journalism: There's no box big enough

   It's impossible to contain journalism in a safe, little box.

   There are too many different kinds of stories to tell, and so many ways to cover them. I get overwhelmed when I think too hard about the overall responsibility of teaching journalism.

   As educators, we have to somehow break down the craft of journalism to its simplest form, to make it a conceivable task to the youthful mind. But first, we, as educators, must make sense of it ourselves.

   I've been in the journalism business a long time, but I am just now learning to categorize the different ways and means of teaching it.

   I used to think the writing of a story was the most important part of journalism. Write a good lead, and the readers will come. Teaching grammar and spelling is a part of the job. No doubt about it. But for the past two years, since I've been in the MA Journalism Educators program, I have come to realize journalism is more than a well-written story.

   It's teaching students:

• their First Amendment rights;
• legal and ethical policies;
• the tools of the trade (multimedia, software, web/newspaper design);
• what news is;
• about the watchdog role;
• communication skills;
• teamwork;
• the elements of journalism;
• the difference between PR and journalism;
• that journalism is a social responsibility in its purest form.


  These are 10 solid reasons why principles should not be prior reviewing or censoring their student media staff. Unless they are former journalists or journalism majors, principals don't have the education to censor. They can't put journalism in a safe, little box. It's much more than that.

   What they can do is hire qualified advisers/teachers who can teach all of these functions. That's the safest route to responsible scholastic journalism.