Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet are students in your high school who committed suicide after their families tried to keep them apart due to their age differences, Romeo being a senior and Juliet a freshman.
Your student newspaper wants to devote most of the next issue on this news story, with additional articles on student reactions and a psychological piece on teenage suicide. The administration, on the other hand, has told your newspaper advisor not to touch this story, claiming that the surrounding professional newspapers and broadcast media have covered it in depth, and citing their authority to "censor" and "prior review" according to the Hazelwood court decision.
YOUR TASK
1. Assign which members of your group of three will write one of the two front page stories, and which other will write the newspaper's page two editorial.
2. Write your stories using the journalistic method of the inverted pyramid you've already learned.
3. Be sure to edit your stories using the Associated Press Stylebook and/or your newspaper's own stylebook.
YOUR PROCESS
Conduct an interview with the school principal on his/her views of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier and write a page one news story on the decision to censor the suicide coverage.Write a page one news story on the Journalism Education Association, the National Child Rights Alliance and The Student Press Law Center's positions on "censorship", "freedom of expression", "prior review", and "free speech".
Write a page two editorial on the newspaper staff's position concerning their First Amendment rights of a free press, using the national organization sites as background information.
YOUR RESOURCES
JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission - Follow the links to "Freedom of Expression Statement", "Prior Review Statement", and "Censorship Arguments".
Student Press Law Center - Follow the links to "On-Line Legal Clinic - Commonly Asked Questions (The High School Top 10) and Public High School Media (Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier: A Complete Guide)"; "News Flash - Alaska high school paper fights, wins censorship battle."
National Child Rights Alliance - This group is more biased toward children's rights as they see them, so read and evaluate this article as such.Take notes on your Internet sites and interviews as you have learned.
Decide what kind of photographs or graphics might enliven your stories.
Balance your coverage to include both sides of the issue, and remember to write your articles in the Inverted Pyramid format.You now understand that the United States Constitution's First Amendment privileges of Freedom of the Press often don't carry the same rights for scholastic newspapers as they do to commercial ones. You also see that school administrators also have certain responsibilities to their schools and the school districts which they represent.