‘[Student journalists are] facing the same media law and press concerns that journalists out in the field are facing, such as defamation,’ says Marie McMullen at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Illustration: Guardian Design / Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘[Student journalists are] facing the same media law and press concerns that journalists out in the field are facing, such as defamation,’ says Marie McMullen at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Illustration: Guardian Design / Getty Images Law (US) Even high school reporters are facing censorship now As teenage journalists deal with threats to their school newspapers, they’re calling in attorneys for back up
High school journalism is often seen as a gentle apprenticeship: a place where teenagers cut their teeth on post-game reports from Friday night football or incremental updates of a student-council race. But at 17, Myesha Phukan wanted to work on something meatier. As a student reporter for the Oracle at Mountain View high school, she and a group of student journalists began methodically digging into a pattern of on-campus sexual harassment that, the reporters believed, administrators weren’t handling effectively. Over weeks of rigorous investigation, the Oracle amassed a substantial archive of evidence including screenshots, photos and witness accounts. The story investigated alleged on-campus offenders and consulted experts about the need for accountability when it comes to on-campus assault.
When Phukan and her fellow reporters asked the school’s principal for comment about the administration’s perceived inaction, tensions escalated. In several closed-door meetings, Phukan says she was warned that such an article could have “catastrophic” reputational repercussions, for the alleged offenders and the school. The original draft included descriptions of serious offenses, ranging from harassment, to attempted rape.
Oftentimes people think of censorship as physically pulling a story from a paper. But it can come in the form of funding cuts Myesha Phukan According to Phukan, the administration stated their belief that the Oracle’s reporters should be concerned with casting the school in a “positive light”. The reporters on the paper felt immense pressure to revise the story, which eventually they did. The name of an alleged repeat harasser was removed (with the administration citing fears of jeopardizing that student’s mental health) and critical details about on-campus assaults were also removed. Detailed accounts were replaced with more vague descriptions and quotes from female students and expert sources were pared back. “We significantly self-censored and watered it down,” Phukan says.
Despite these concessions, Phukan says, the school responded to the article by re-assigning the Oracle’s faculty journalism adviser, tenured teacher Carla Gomez, and slashing the school’s Introduction to Journalism course, citing low enrollment. In response, Phukan and Gomez called the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit that defends the press freedoms of student journalists in the US.
“When this happened, I didn’t even realize what censorship even was, or the extent,” Phukan says. “Oftentimes people think of censorship as physically pulling a story from a paper. But it can come in the form of funding cuts, or intimidation.” The SPLC connected the student journalists with local legal counsel via their attorney referral network. The Oracl…