Teaching secondary school journalism requires a broad range of knowledge and performance abilities. Journalism courses, frequently based in a school’s English department, go beyond what most English or language arts curriculum requires. Therefore, these standards reflect a need for skill in teaching storytelling, writing, listening, speaking, researching and reporting, leadership, collaboration, media law and ethics, fiscal responsibility and multimedia production. Mastery of these skills helps teachers prepare their students to become knowledgeable media producers and consumers essential to our democracy while using critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.

Exemplary journalism educators engage students using the best strategies in communication, instruction, management, motivation and evaluation. The ever-changing nature of media demands journalism educators keep pace with technology and pedagogy. Finally, such journalism educators seek growth through deliberate reflection, both individually and in professional learning communities

Collaboration is at the core of scholastic journalism programs that achieve high standards of competency, ethics and community service.

The ability to collaborate effectively is particularly important in addressing controversies involving the student press. An inherent function of American journalism is to encourage diversity, which includes covering perspectives that may be disagreeable, unpopular and discomforting. While that function is essential to the democratic process, it also can cause headaches for principals who want to avoid any kind of conflict at school (outside of academic and sports competition, of course).

But schools are marketplaces for ideas, and controversial topics should be considered  carefully rather than censored. To avoid controversy is to deny students opportunities to improve skills in conflict resolution, to appreciate minority voices, to modify attitudes based on new insights and to contribute to problem solving. The roots of American freedom were nurtured by controversy and conflict—both inherent attributes of democracy. The student press can be an instrument of civility when values, judgments and feelings collide. By amplifying student and community voices on important issues, the press helps people define problems, identify alternative solutions, reach common ground and fix things.

Protocol, an concept originally suggested by Bob Steele of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies,  is a structure that facilitates collaboration by providing procedures that inspire ethics, help build ideal partnerships and make consensus more attainable.

The value of empowering students to make all content decisions lies in the following responsibilities.

By using journalistic standards and processes in their decision-making, student journalists learn to:
• Recognize legitimate news values and apply them in reporting;
• Develop a relentless pursuit of the truth;
• Apply the same ethical standards and guidelines to all media;
• Inform accurately, thoroughly and coherently;
• Verify information;
• Ask the challenging questions a democratic society needs to evolve and prosper;
• Seek complete and relevant answers;
• Find the most credible and reliable sources;
• Present information in context, with perspective, reflecting diverse viewpoints;
• Be aware of their own and others’ biases by identifying issues with and limitations of information;
• Clearly separate and label fact from opinion;
• Use public records;
• Select the best platform to tell the story

See also:
Journalism Educator Standards
Six principles behind news literacy
Media literate consumers
Career Technical Education (CTE)
Civic engagement and journalism
Partnership in 21st Century Skills
Common Core Standards
Ties to educational initiatives
Informed communities

Resources
• Principles of journalism
http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles
• Journalism’s moral responsibility: three questions
http://www.poynter.org/dg.lts/id.5969/content.content_view.htm
• Sensitive Issues guide
http://jeasprc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Sensitive-issues-guide.pdf
• Twenty years of Hazelwood  
http://www.splc.org/news/report_detail.asp?edition=44&id=1399

“News literacy is the acquisition of 21st-century, critical-thinking skills for analyzing and judging the reliability of news and information, differentiating among facts, opinions and assertions in the media we consume, create and distribute. It can be taught most effectively in cross-curricular, inquiry-based formats at all grade levels. It is a necessary component for literacy in contemporary society.”

These six principles from the Radio Television Digital News Foundation are to guide producers and consumers of news and information.

1. Free expression is the foundation — the cornerstone — of democracy.

“I’m looking for someone who will sponsor the school newspaper and yearbook, but I’m more interested in someone who will teach our general students about the importance of the media.”   — Administrator from New Jersey seeking a journalism teacher

Today’s digital and social media represent new and highly effective platforms for providing information and entertainment. However, with the rise of new media, the need for media-literate consumers and producers is even more pressing.