Katie Maloney, a staff writer for the Student Press Law Center, reported, “Harrisonburg Police officers and the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Rockingham County, Va. executed a search warrant in the newsroom of the James Madison University student newspaper Friday.”

The SPLC also reported that the officers and attorney seized photographs of a recent riot near campus.

Please check the SPLC’s website for a full report here.

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.

The Society of Professional Journalists stepped up to support Northwestern University’s Medill Innocence Project today.

SPJ joined three other organizations in an amicus curiae brief, which supports a motion to stop a subpoena from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

The subpoena is demanding notes and other materials created by the student journalists involved with the Project’s investigation of Anthony McKinney, who has been in prison for 31 years for murder.

The students found information that led a judge to grant McKinney another hearing, which then led the Cook County state’s attorney to subpoena the information.

SPJ joined the Student Press Law Center, the College Media Advisers, Inc. and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in the brief.

The brief argues that, while collecting the information, the students were reporters. As reporters, the students are protected by the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege Act.

A judge accepted the brief and has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 10.

The Student Press Law Center has a copy of the brief on its website in PDF format.

In related news, ChicagoBreakingNews.com is reporting, “Today, an attorney representing the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, CBS News, the Washington Post and the Hearst Corp. – in addition to a dozen more newsgathering organizations – filed a brief in Cook County Circuit Court opposing the forced surrender of the material.”

Hopefully justice will prevail in the end, and the court will realize, as they did in Tinker v. Des Moines, that students and teachers do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.

We will keep you posted on future developments.

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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.