2008 Woodie Awards
Senate Bill 1370 - More protection for student press
Issue date: 4/28/08 Section: Editorial
Retaliation towards high school and college journalism teachers and advisers, and impingement of the First Amendment is one step closer towards being a thing of the past as the Senate passed Bill 1370 in a vote of 35-2.
The Bill introduced by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, would prohibit school administrators from firing or suspending journalism advisers for content run in student papers which the administration deems questionable or controversial.
Senate Bill 1370 is the second step in granting student publications true First Amendment journalistic protection. The first step went into effect in January 2007, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 2581 into law, said Adam Keigwin, spokesperson for Leland Yee.
That bill gave student journalists the same rights as professionals and put an end to administrators trying to censor, control the content of newspapers, or shutting down journalism programs because of conflicting ideals and undesirable school conflicts and coverage.
Before Bill 1370 reaches the Governor's desk it will be voted on by the Assembly. If the bill becomes law, students will finally be able to learn and refine their craft properly without having to compromise their work for fear of having their program, or it's faculty advisers being lashed out at by administrators for not complying with the demands to censor or edit their students. Advisers will also finally be able to teach students how to report on controversial and hard hitting news without fearing relation for doing their job right.
The campuses with a history of cracking down and punishing student-run papers for actively practicing journalistic reporting, free from all bias and honestly informing the community about issues that directly affect them are actually doing a major disservice to its students.
Students in these programs will not be equipped to deal with real world working conditions. They will not have the proper experience in covering real news, because it may stir up ill will. A journalist's job is to not only uncover and report on the truth, but also to alert the public when there is wrongdoing being committed by individuals.
If students are robbed of those rights to cover news properly, we all lose. The public will never receive proper coverage of their news if academic institutions would rather conceal their questionable practices or shortcomings than do their job correctly by instilling knowledge and nurturing their young minds.
"We hope that the loop hole can finally close up and we can once and for all have free speech for students," said Keigwin.
The Bill introduced by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, would prohibit school administrators from firing or suspending journalism advisers for content run in student papers which the administration deems questionable or controversial.
Senate Bill 1370 is the second step in granting student publications true First Amendment journalistic protection. The first step went into effect in January 2007, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 2581 into law, said Adam Keigwin, spokesperson for Leland Yee.
That bill gave student journalists the same rights as professionals and put an end to administrators trying to censor, control the content of newspapers, or shutting down journalism programs because of conflicting ideals and undesirable school conflicts and coverage.
Before Bill 1370 reaches the Governor's desk it will be voted on by the Assembly. If the bill becomes law, students will finally be able to learn and refine their craft properly without having to compromise their work for fear of having their program, or it's faculty advisers being lashed out at by administrators for not complying with the demands to censor or edit their students. Advisers will also finally be able to teach students how to report on controversial and hard hitting news without fearing relation for doing their job right.
The campuses with a history of cracking down and punishing student-run papers for actively practicing journalistic reporting, free from all bias and honestly informing the community about issues that directly affect them are actually doing a major disservice to its students.
Students in these programs will not be equipped to deal with real world working conditions. They will not have the proper experience in covering real news, because it may stir up ill will. A journalist's job is to not only uncover and report on the truth, but also to alert the public when there is wrongdoing being committed by individuals.
If students are robbed of those rights to cover news properly, we all lose. The public will never receive proper coverage of their news if academic institutions would rather conceal their questionable practices or shortcomings than do their job correctly by instilling knowledge and nurturing their young minds.
"We hope that the loop hole can finally close up and we can once and for all have free speech for students," said Keigwin.
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