Key questions student journalists address in determining coverage

When students determine content, they evaluate how the issue or coverage affects those in their communities. Journalists ask themselves what readers need to know and how best to tell the story. Student editors examine the issue collaboratively, considering angles for coverage while also thinking about what readers already know.

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