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What
is school news?
See some examples of excellent school news reporting from F Newsmagazine and from other publications.
News
is a social construction.
It is
different at different schools, different as defined by different editorial
staffs.
Who
defines the news?
Not just the editors and reporters.
Also, the administration, faculty and students.
They have to be listened to--especially the students, because the school
newspaper is their voice and without it they will rarely be heard.
What
issues has F identified in the past?
"Hard News"
- Curriculum
- Quality of teaching
- Controversial firings of teachers
- Tuition
- Retention rates
- School expansion--building purchase
- Diversity--mostly, minority representation among
students and faculty and multicultural perspectives in curriculum
- School galleries, including controversies over
student art and censorship
- Equipment and resources
- Lectures
"Soft News"
- Faculty profiles
- Student art pages
Reactive Coverage--Event-driven reporting
- How Asian financial crisis affected international
students
- How 9/11 affected international students
- Student art not shown in Betty Rymer (petition
drive)
- School Self-Study
- School expansion (building purchases) and contraction
(building sales)
Possible stories
Curriculum
- What should an art school be and how are we doing?
- What should student artists try to be like, and
how are they doing?
- Critiques and teaching at school FYP reform
- Interdisciplinary programs and coursework
What is the experience of students at the school?
- Diversity--e.g., racial tensions in a class; international
students
- How international students are affected by changes
since 9/11
- Community and alienation
- Student art projects
- Student groups--e.g., article on merger of Jewish
student groups
- Surveys of student opinion and experience (student
life and other oxymorons…)
Continuing issues and follow up on earlier coverage
- Retention
- Recruiting for diversity
- Impact of loss of Lisa Brock
- School's reliance on part time faculty--how it
affects students; their status, pay, support
- Changes in campus computing--introduction of a
"portal"
- Financial Aid (including federal funding) and tuition
increases
- School staff and faculty--coping or demoralized
after budget crisis, cutbacks and layoffs
Practical
problems of covering school news
Dull definition of news value
Be an artist, use your imagination
The typical school newspaper
• don't recycle administration press releases
• don't write PR-type features on school programs
Reactive coverage
Don't just cover events or issues with a news peg
Critical use of sources
- Don't just interview administrators (e.g.,
in budget articles)
- Interview students as well as faculty and administration
- Don't just interview students who are friends,
faculty or administration you know (in fact, don't interview your friends!)
Issues
Take on the big issues, don't look at the trees and miss the forest
Carelessness and overcaution: problem of a
small community
The big question for school newspaper staff
What
is the responsibility of the student newspaper to the school community?
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