Law, Ethics & News Literacy
Law
As a high school journalist, supporting the journalism law is a learning opportunity and one of my greatest accomplishments. This picture on the left shows me and the 2022 Pinion staff celebrating after our first in-person testimony at the Capitol. On the right is a photo taken at the the House of Representatives floor session as HB 1848 passed the final reading on April 22, 2022.
The bill to protect the First Amendment rights of student journalists, HB1848, was going through the legislature. The Pinion staff and I led the advocacy for this bill. We set up zoom meetings with other newspaper staff from other schools statewide to educate them about this bill. Throughout the entire legislation process, we learned how to participate in democracy and to testify confidently to the committee members in-person and online. I testified at the first two hearings via Zoom.
During spring break, the State Capitol reopened to in-person testimony. My peers and I testified in front of the senate education committee. After the hearing, several members inquired about the controversy of our school name. I shared that I had wrote an article on the topic, Resolution To Rename School Fails In Committee and they requested for a copy for my article
In that article, I interviewed Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke, then Representative, who taught me to be proactive in the legislative process. The following year, I testified to oppose HR 24 to change McKinley High School's name and to remove the statue with a verbal testimony and presented HR 64, a resolution House Speaker Scott Saiki helped me draft and submit to honor McKinley High School’s 132 fallen soldiers by safeguarding and preserving the name of McKinley High School.
Participating in the process allowed me to build my understanding of the complex nature of our legislative system. I am able to expressing my concerns and voice my opinions to engage in the process of public decision making.
Sharing my experience at Al Neuharth Journalism conference about the HB 1848 Student Journalism Protection Act
Ethics
The morning of February 16, 2023, my staff and I were faced with great sadness. The death of a McKinley student, killed in the hit and run, offered us the opportunity to practice ethical journalism. We changed our editorial policy about reporting on deaths. In the original policy, we had a maximum of 200 words to write a memoriam. We felt that it was too little to share the importance of honoring Sara's life and therefore, we changed the policy to bring more leniency to the expectation.
Our newsroom upholds the Society of Professional Journalist Code of Ethics and on our website and on our classroom wall we post the "Editorial Policy."
The rules we follow to holds the writer behind the bylines accountable and take responsibility for our actions.
Pink is Sara's favorite color
News Literacy
Reading is an integral part of being a journalist. I actively enhance my news literacy by reading journalistically. A newswriting assignment read an article that was written by students from other schools. In order to complete the assignment, I would need to summarize the main points of the article and write what I have learned from that article. With the experience, I apply what I've learned to my own writing by adding statistics, the subheadings, and ways to incorporate quotes so that it pushes the story forward, and most importantly, to be mindful about the placements of photos.
JCamp, a six-day training camp brought together around thirty students from across the nation to learn from veteran journalists and leading media executives. Each day, I actively read to improve my news literacy by reading the Washington Post from cover to cover. We were then quizzed after each reading session. To be quizzed on what I've read taught me to scan quickly at the leads and excavate the most important information. JCamp trained me well to read journalistically, which is a necessary skill to become a great journalist.