“Occasionally, I had watched the evening news with my parents and read the newspaper, but I never fully realized the impact that news had on my daily life,” said Lucy Chen, a soon-to-be junior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. “And studying news literacy taught me how to gather and assess my own stream of information, whether it come from a newspaper, a TV show, or the Internet.”

The above paragraph appears in Chen’s article in the recent edition of the Nieman Reports, which is published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Chen is one of many students to take part in the News Literacy Project, a program designed to educate middle and high school students on how to discern fact from fiction in the digital age.

Alan Miller, a former investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and founder of the News Literacy Project, wrote in the same edition of the Nieman Reports, “In the 2009-10 school year, the News Literacy Project worked with 21 English, history and government teachers in seven middle schools and high schools in New York City, Bethesda and Chicago, reaching nearly 1,500 students. More than 75 journalists spoke to students and worked with them on projects.”

Miller brought in several seasoned journalists to help with the project: Gwen Ifill, Sheryl Gay, Peter Eisler, and James Grimaldi – to name a few.

The project engaged students in discussions and activities through a variety of subject matter, said Miller in his article. He added that teachers were also able to adapt the curriculum to fit their own needs.

To view both of the above articles, and the Nieman Reports’ entire section on “Digital Youth,” click here.

Josh Moore, staff writer for the Student Press Law Center, reports that the Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees will take up a controversial policy for their student publications.

According to Moore, “The proposed policy states that student publications are not public forums and that administrators will not tolerate material that is ‘libelous, obscene, invades the privacy of others, conflicts with the basic educational mission of the school, socially inappropriate or inappropriate due to the maturity level of the students, or is materially disruptive to the educational process.’”

Elizabeth Kaleva, the district’s attorney and author of the policy, told Moore that the policy would help protect their students’ First Amendment rights. However, Frank LoMonte, the SPLC’s executive director, said the policy allows too many possibilities for censorship.

Please click here to read Moore’s article.

Welcome to The Weekly Index!

Please forgive the minimal posts this week. The school year is back, and in full swing, but I’ve compiled a pretty good list of links to keep you busy.

• Jessica Durkin, SPJ Digital Media Committee member, has a really cool post on one of the first tablets that people hoped would revolutionize the way we read newspapers. Obviously, the tablet in the 1994 video wasn’t and instant success, but who knows? Maybe, Apple will have better luck over a decade later.
• Speaking of the iPad, here is what The New York Times had to say.
• In more related Apple news: The University of Florida said they will require some of their journalism students to buy Macs, software packages, and other equipment. I can’t say that I am in favor of it, but the students will be able to use financial aid.
• You may not have the money to start a school newspaper, but as long as you have eager young minds… anything is possible. A high school in Ohio had trouble reviving a school paper that had sat dormant for 15 years. Their answer: Blog!
• Hey, young journalists! Do you have an online portfolio? Why not check in on the discussion over at SPJ’s Generation J blog.
• The Los Angeles Times has partnered with students from USC to produce content for their homicide blog.
• A battle has been brewing between a teachers union and a student publication in Nevada. A teachers union attempted to stop the publication of an article, but it looks like the article was published today after all. Check one for the First Amendment. Also, check back for a longer post on this.
• It looks like an old printing plant from The Washington Post will be sold, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like the presses will be start back up. The University of Maryland purchased the plant, which closed last year to extend their east campus.

There are about 100 other links that I would like to share with you, but I am heading to class. I will update the post later with a few more!

Today we are going to start a new feature, The Weekly Index, where I will try to point you towards some interesting articles, websites, features, videos and podcasts that pertain to campus journalism.

So, let’s get started!

• The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article and video about campus news blogs. Some of the blogs have become so popular that they are scooping the campus newspapers.
• How do journalists cover an event in the aftermath of such a terrible natural disaster? The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz tells us in today’s column.
• Tiffany Luckey, Generation J Committee member, posted a video to their committee’s blog featuring Colleen Kiphart asking the question, “What does diversity mean to you?”
• Kevin Smith, SPJ’s president used his blog to recap what SPJ has been up to lately. Leave some time to read this, because we’ve been doing A LOT! Part of that is about defending students, too.
• Dan Kubiske talks about the scuffle between Google and China on the Journalism and The World blog. Some of the hacks seemed to target journalists.
• USA TODAY spends “a few minutes with Andy Rooney,” and they talk about his 31 years at 60 Minutes and a possible retirement in the very distant future.

“I hate to say it, but a computer is better than a typewriter.” ~ Andy Rooney

• Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism said they found that print journalism is still the best source to find out information about a community.
• The Student Press Law Center has some information about a contest that allows high school students to win a nice chunk of change for a winning PSA on the First Amendment.

That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to check back for longer blog posts throughout the week, and I will see you back here for The Weekly Index next Friday!

Happy reporting!

p.s. You can always follow us on Twitter, too.

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College Media Advisers, Inc. recently released their annual Keeping Free Presses Free publication, which is a treasure-trove of great information for student journalists and advisers.

Andrea Breemer Frantz, associate professor of journalism at Robert Morris University and a member of the CMA First Amendment Committee, discusses her experience and thoughts on the First Amendment and private universities in “When the First Amendment doesn’t apply: Teaching free speech and press at private schools presents challenges.”

Breemer Frantz also revisits Tinker v. Des Moines, one of the most important Supreme Court cases for students in U.S. history, by interviewing Mary Beth Tinker in “Wearing our constitutional rights as we walk through the schoolhouse gate.”

Tinker, her brother John, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt wore black armbands in 1965 as a way to protest the Vietnam War. They were quickly disciplined by the school district.

As Breemer Frantz writes, “What began as a simple call for peace by a handful of teen-agers quickly developed into a precedent-setting challenge before the Supreme Court to determine just how far the First Amendment could stretch to those under the age of 18.”

The article celebrates the 40th anniversary of the 7-2 Supreme Court decision, which said First Amendment rights do not end at the schoolhouse door.

Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, discusses current and past court battles resulting from online publications and cyberbullying laws in “More students facing online censorship.”

According to LoMonte, some states have enacted cyberbullying laws with broad language, which results in “open-ended enforcement discretion that can easily be manipulated by govern¬ment officials looking to stifle legitimate speech.”

LoMonte also discusses the pitfalls of being a student media adviser in “The cost of defending students’ rights: Two advisers lose jobs for defending the rights of their students.”

The article highlights the circumstances surrounding cases of adviser abuse at Maryland’s Morgan State University and Clark College in Washington.

The publication also features a roundup of 15 college press cases through the years, an informative article on obtaining a $5,000 grant as part of the Liberty Tree Initiative, and a great article on SPLC’s Adam Goldstein answering 10,000 legal requests since 2003.

You can find the publication at the CMA website.

People who once wrote for their high school newspaper often wear the scars of censorship and prior restraint.

For a group of students at one high school in Lincolnshire, Ill., the wounds are fresh and deep.

The Chicago Tribune reported on Nov. 20 that Stevenson High School officials stopped the presses on their award-winning student newspaper over articles dealing with drinking and smoking by honor students, teen pregnancy, and shoplifting.

Stevenson High School put out a statement in response to the Tribune’s article.

“The Statesman’s publication, originally scheduled for Friday, November 20, was delayed because its faculty advisors determined that an article featuring anonymous sources discussing alleged illegal activity was not fit for print,” read the statement.

Since then the Tribune has reported that students were given two hours to put together a replacement edition, or they would fail. The students were also not allowed to remove their names from the stories, which they said were sloppily put together.

Stephanie Glassberg, a senior and staff writer told the Tribune, “We had no time to do it. It was sloppy. It was gross. It’s not what we do. It’s not our paper anymore, it’s the administration’s paper.”

So far the Student Press Law Center and the Illinois Journalism Education Association has come to the aid of the student journalists.

“We are dealing with a school administration that is completely out of control and is clearly willing to stoop to anything to shut down independent journalism,” said Student Press Law Center Executive Director Frank LoMonte in an article posted to the Center’s website.

SPJ’s Freedom of Information Committee Chair David Cuillier also has a blog post on the this case on SPJ’s FOI FYI.

What do you think about the situation at Stevenson High School? How can SPJ help high school journalists like those at Stevenson? Comment below.