High school and college reporters covering news for their schools' official publications are entitled to the same protection of free speech that their more adult and professional counterparts enjoy outside the campus. This was the stand taken by Wisconsin's New Voices coordinator, Matthew Smith, who is campaigning for state-wide legislation of this right for up-and-coming journalists learning their trade within the confines of the academe.
According to ABC, student journalists from the Wisconsin-based Fond Du Lac High School covered a sexual assault two years ago. The school authorities clamped down on the report and invoked a policy that gave them authority to censor material deemed unsafe to student security. The debate that erupted highlighted an ages-old dispute as to who should have the final say over media sponsored by an academic instituiton, which is run and managed by student journalists.
The school administration had long since witheld their objection, but Smith is not letting the issue go. He is advocating for a more consistent and government-recognized policy that high school and college journalists can do their job in the knowledge that their rights to free speech and free press are protected. Smith was a magazine advertiser in Fond Du Lac High School during the time of the incident. He says, "I think that kind of opened my eyes to how harmful things can be if the rules aren't clear and students aren't specifically protected."
According to Times Daily, Smith's campaign to win over legislators to his cause is stil in its early stages. However, other states, for reasons unrelated to the Wisconsin case, are also lobbying for the same legislation. Four states, including North Dakota, have already passed laws protecting the rights of student journalists.
The Missourian reports that Republican Rep. Elijah Haahr has introduced the bill called the "Walter Cronkite New Voices Act.," following the Missouri University's wrangle with race-related incidents last year. Two student journalsts had been forbidden by the school authorities to take photographs of protests against racism.
