In the past, I’ve written about the profound impact my high school journalism program had on me. It’s no secret that I would not be where I am today without the tremendous help of my mentors and peers involved with Kirkwood High School journalism. This week marks Scholastic Journalism Week, a high-school-oriented celebration of student rights. This was one of my favorite (albeit geeky) traditions from our journalism program, and even now that I’m in college, I wanted to take a minute to share some of my thoughts on the subject.
At Kirkwood High School, we celebrated Scholastic Journalism Week in several ways. Members of the journalism program wore black armbands to commemorate the landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines, which led to the now-famous decision that teachers and students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gates. Students also presented facts and information about rights to the student population, debunking misconceptions and challenging students to name the five rights protected under the First Amendment. I was shocked by which forms of speech my peers thought could be regulated by the government, and Scholastic Journalism Week was a great way to educate Kirkwood.
Personally, I feel very lucky to have been a part of a journalism program with so much First Amendment freedom. Last year, our staff was recognized with two national awards, the First Amendment Press Freedom Award and the Cornerstone Award. We were one of three high schools in the nation to win the First Amendment Press Freedom Award and one of two to win the Cornerstone Award. But our pride didn’t stem from those awards; it came from our ability to print what we found suitable. Our editorials and columns have tackled everything from pro-life marches to personal experiences with anorexia, from questioning the district’s non-discriminatory clause to being hit on by creepy ice cream men. Before I joined the paper, two national tragedies hit close to home: Michael Devlin was arrested in Kirkwood in 2007 for kidnapping two teenage boys, Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby, and a gunman killed six people in a shooting at Kirkwood City Hall in 2008. Both were polarizing issues in the community, and editors in the journalism programs struggled with how to cover them. Students in the program now tell stories of how some district officials suggested censoring the paper due to the sensitivity of the content, but Kirkwood administrators (most notably former principal Dr. David Holley, who last year was recognized as the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association’s Administrator of the Year) stood up and said, “That’s not how we do things at Kirkwood.” And you know what? The coverage turned out to be fair, accurate and award-winning.
While I was at The Kirkwood Call, nothing of that magnitude happened. The only story we had that even compares was when a 2010 graduate of KHS was arrested and charged with sexual assault. When the news broke, my advisor, my co-editor-in-chief and I spoke about whether to cover it. We decided to post a news brief on our website, and as we wrote in an editors’ note:
“The Kirkwood Call has made the decision to cover the Sean Adams case in order to present the facts to the student body and eliminate rumors. As every major news outlet in the St. Louis area has posted information about the arrest, we felt it was newsworthy. Our intent is to cover the incident respectfully and present the facts as more information is released. We ask all commenters to use respectful language, as obscene comments will not be approved.”
Doing so kicked off a firestorm among students and parents. Many thought we were out of place covering it, as you can read in the comments (my favorite was when they accused of us of “invading his property”). Other members of the community stuck up for us, though, and I was amazed by the discussion it sparked. It certainly made us wonder whether we could have published such a topic if we went to school elsewhere.
In all, Scholastic Journalism Week is just a made-up event, but where I’m from, we tried to make it mean something. I feel incredibly blessed to have been a part of such a progressive, fair school system, and I only hope that in time, other schools follow our lead.
