I just left a meeting of the Jackson Area High School Press Association, which is a group of local professionals and educators working to support high school journalism. We only had four people today, so it was a very casual meeting. I spent some time sharing what we did at the Reynolds Institute and how it would help not only at Murrah but throughtout the area.
Donna Ladd, the editor of our local alternative weekly, the Jackson Free Press, asked me if anything came up about students selling advertising and writing stories, since that is not considered good practice in the professional world. I told her that we discussed conflict of interest, but I didn't think anything about students doing both came up. She seemed to think it was a no-no, but then I told her with 17 students on staff it was hard to keep the two totally separate, although obviously no one sold an ad and wrote a story about the advertiser.
I thought I would ask this group for some feedback. Do your students sell ads and function as reporters for your publication? Does anyone see this as an ethical dilemma on a high school level? If you don't allow students to do both, how do you manage to have enough ad revenue?
Lynne Schneider
Murrah High School
Jackson, Miss.
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ReplyDelete(Spelling errors fixed. Sorry about that. MW)
ReplyDeleteWe have had the good fortune to have a budget item paying for printing, so this is not an issue for us. (The big headline in Wednesday's local paper, however, was announcing a $3 million budget shortfall so that may change.)
However, I don't see that you have a problem in having your students sell ads and function as reporters since your program needs the revenue to publish, and you can justify ad sales from an educational standpoint.
Texas has "Essential Elements" which state items which need to be covered in order for students to receive credit for a course.
If a story requires an interview with an advertiser then the appropriate course of action, as you pointed out, would be for another student to cover the event.
Mark Webber
Treviño School of Comm. and Fine Arts
Laredo, Texas
It is just not practical to have students who just sell ads when you have such a small staff. just do not write about the businesses that by ads, unless it is a good story.
ReplyDeleteIf we look back at our session about the history of newspapers and how they started out as one or two person operations, there really is a precedent for people doing the writing and the ad sales.
ReplyDeleteIn an ideal world there would be separation, but ideal is vanishing fast for newspapers.
With small town newspapers (like the one I was at) it is common for the photographers to have to take advertising photos. We simply made a distinction between the uses for the two and kept the assignments clearly defined.
Jeff Jones
Miyamura High School
Gallup, NM
Thanks, guys. I think, based on your comments, I feel comfortable continuing as we have in the past, but with even more care to be sure we don't have any conflicts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone here that you should proceed as you have been in the past.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading the Kovach and Rosenstiel book and there's a section on the "wall" that newspapers try to create between the journalists and ad people. Much of it has been created arbitrarily and often hurts the morale of the entire team. It is not realistic to think that journalists work in a vacuum. For the team to work with more unity and learn more about the profession, it would be best to have the everyone doing some of both.
Only if there is such as large staff that not ev
I am really thinking about Alan's subscription model. I also Emailed the AJC and the Marietta Journal to see if they could print our paper for us.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know how bulk mail works? If we move to a subscriber model and have to send out several hundred subscription requests and then the actual papers, this could get pricey. Alan said he paid about $75 per issue for mailing.
I am figuring on $10 per subscription. If I can get 1000 subscribers, we will fully fund the program including the printing, have money for technology upgrades, and be able to attend conferences. If each student in the class sells 10 subscriptions each semester, I am half way there. I thought I would hit alumni lists on Facebook and the local chamber of commerce.
In addition to the five printed papers, I want to do ten online, one "best of" magazine or keepsake edition around winter break, and one video slide show online edition in May. For all this, $10 is a bargain, right?
Folks, I hope you don't mind my chiming in, but my name came up. The "wall between church and state" in journalism is very important, and is maintained in every journalism code of ethics out there. Too often, we get young journalists who don't know enough about it. I"m not saying for sure that your students should not sell ads and report (I'll leave that to the high-school journalism gurus), but it is vital to teach them that editorial must be separate from advertising in order to build trust from your readership and to put out an ethical product. Please have those discussions with them so they are prepared to do good journalism in the real world when they get there.
ReplyDeleteThanks, and great conversation!
Donna Ladd
Editor, Jackson Free Press
Selling ads is an important component of understanding the relationship between a community newspaper and its community. In many rural areas, writers are called upon to do multiple duties like write and sell. Sometimes, ad sales lead to story ideas. And, of course, ads sales are absolutely necessary to financing the school paper. So, yes, my students do both, hopefully. It takes so work with them to get them to feel comfortable in ad sales but sales are a great career for young people and some of them never think of it.
ReplyDeleteOne year, I had a yearbook group that had a student on staff who did nothing but sell ads and was he good at it!!! My but that boy could sell. Also, my, but he could not write.
Carol Clarke