The Journalism Education Association has designated the days of Feb. 19 to 23 to be this year’s Scholastic Journalism Week. The goal of this journalism week is to teach students the benefits, protections and history of journalism. Each day is dedicated to a different topic that is essential to journalism.
The first topic is on Feb. 19 and is about the First Amendment. “Freedom of speech is very imperative to a journalist. Every writer deserves the human right to write what they please without censorship getting in the way,” said News Editor for the Redbird Word and The Daily Bird, Aniya Morrow.
The next day is all about the history of journalism and how it can be controlled to produce specific outcomes. One of the examples given in the lesson is that of the USS Maine sinking and how the coverage of the story led to a war with Spain. “Journalism is supposed to be neutral, but sometimes the way a story is presented can sway public opinion,” Sports Editor, Chase Chilton said.
The lesson for the third day teaches about the “Journalism of today” and how social media has played a massive role in the spread of information and also the availability of becoming a citizen journalist. “I believe that social media is good and bad for spreading news. On one hand, the information is more available, but on the other hand anyone can pick up a phone and spread misinformation,”Assistant Entertainment Editor, Gage Parron, said.
The fourth day is about Student Press Freedom day. On Feb. 22, student journalists are supposed to bring awareness to the challenges faced as a writer. An example of a struggle would be censorship and fighting misinformation.
The final day is a lesson about the future of journalism. There are problems on the rise in the journalism community with an increase of misinformation and deep fakes.
Members of the Redbird Word and Daily Bird have set up activities for the school to do during Scholastic Journalism Week. On Monday there will be no school, Tuesday will be a spirit day focusing on MTV looks, Wednesdays going to be a mock press conference with the students of journalism, on Thursday there will be 8th graders coming to the school to shadow the journalism team and Friday will be journalism bingo. These activities will be good for bringing new students to journalism
Scholastic Journalism Week is important because not only can it draw in new writers, but it can teach people the inside knowledge of journalism.
