Published Thursday, April 5, 2001
The principal as publisher
BY JASON BEGAY
ASNE Reporter
Nicole Edwards, an 18-year-old high school journalist, has seen her share of controversy. As co-editor in chief of the student newspaper at the Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, Ms. Edwards said that the school’s principal closely monitors the newspaper’s content and last fall questioned a story about a student strike.
The story concerned a group of students who boycotted classes in protest of the school’s treatment of a teacher. The teacher, who had worn a short skirt to school, had quit over a school dress-code issue.
The school’s principal, Patricia L. Tucker, expressed her reservations before the story ran, said Ms. Edwards, who spoke on a high school journalism panel at ASNE Wednesday.
Ms. Tucker reads through the stories with the paper’s academic advisor before the paper goes to print, mostly to ensure accuracy and fair reporting. “She said the subject was dealt with and we don’t want it to flare up again,” said Ms. Edwards, a senior. “I told her it was important and we needed to run it.”
But Ms. Tucker was worried that the reporting of the strike story was unbalanced. About 50 students of the 420-student body participated in the strike. “The rest went to class. You would have thought the whole school was on strike,” Ms. Tucker said in an interview at Banneker Monday.
Despite her reservations, Ms. Tucker allowed the story to run as is. “I didn’t see it until the night before,” she said. “I should have at least a couple of days before it’s sent to the printer to read the paper.
“It’s my school (and) my school’s paper,” she said. “People hold me accountable for everything that goes on in this school.” A high school principal has the knowledge to recognize proper content for a student newspaper, she said, especially on issues of accuracy and fairness.
“All you need is common sense,” she said. “It doesn’t take journalism training to know what a nasty remark is.”
