laws, ethics, and news literacy
In any journalistic publication, following laws and ethical guidelines is important for reporting and documenting events objectively, legally and accurately. I showcased these principles through photo editing, interviewing, news gathering, ethical policies and crowdsourcing.
photo editing
In journalism, it is important to not alter the content of photos for ethical reasons. However, sometimes lighting, cropping and color adjustments are necessary and increase the overall quality of a photo. Below are examples of before and after images that showcase my ability to edit effectively in Adobe Photoshop and in Adobe Lightroom. Editing is especially necessary when you get a clear image that is too dark. Lightening the photo makes it visually more appealing and more inviting to view. Differently, editing a family portrait session varies from photojournalism. When editing portraits, you are able to remove things from the background and alter colors more drastically because they will not be published in a news or journalistic setting. I have displayed a portrait session to the right where I altered the background and took out a flamingo in the photo to make the focal point the family. In the basketball photo, I did not alter anything but the lighting to adhere to ethical guidelines.
interviewing
Quoting students, staff, and faculty accurately in the yearbook is necessary to remaining ethical. To confirm what the person said, we always have the person being interviewed sign the bottom of the paper. Now, because some students attend school virtually, they are not on campus and we cannot interview them Face-to-Face. We combated this in whatever way is easiest to obtain the interview. To the left, is an example of a paper interview, but we also conduct interviews over the phone or on FaceTime. We record these interviews on the app, Otter.ai, which transcribes and organizes them. We always ask the person being recorded to state their name and that they are okay with being recorded.
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news gathering
To gather statistics from the student body, we utilized Google Forms. This made it easier to reach a large number of students because we can easily post the link on our social media accounts. Google Forms automatically made all the responses anonymous. School administrators pushed the polls out to the entire student body through Canvas, where students accessed all their coursework, to get as many students to respond as possible.
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crowdsourcing
This year, since a lot of students are off campus, we had to crowdsource multiple photos. This means staffers did not take the photos and we obtained them, with permission, from the person featured in the yearbook. We made this clear by giving the person a photo credit. It is featured in the top right corner as a photo courtesy.
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anonymous quotes
“Other than academically, skipping is good for me because I improve my sleeping and my overall attitude is better. I just feel happier,” the junior male said. “Seven hours a day, five days a week with [one] break every day is just too much for me to handle.”
“You will be viewed differently by your peers and administrators to where opportunities in the future may not be given to you just because you skipped class,” the female sophomore said. from 2019 Legend Yearbook skipping issue |
In our publication, when writing about possibly controversial or personal topics, we don't name the students that we quote. Instead, we quote them by stating their gender and grade level. This ensures privacy of the student or faculty member. With my "Guardians of the Gate," story, seen in the design section of my portfolio, I did this because some students skipped for personal reasons and they broke school rules. I didn't want to encourage the practice, I only aimed to report objectively about it. For all spreads with a similar nature, I encourage staffers to quote students or teachers in this way.
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legal names
In our publication, we always used a student's legal name that is on record with the school for consistency purposes. This included the names next to the student's school photo, name on their senior ad or any content they are featured in. However, issues arise when students have nicknames or have a preferred name. Under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 federal law, Orange County Public Schools offered a process which allowed legal student name changes for school record use. If a student wanted their preferred name used in school documentation, their guardian filled out paperwork with the school. The school and our publication will then honor the preferred name. Though Title IX is not new, the opportunity for students to use preferred names instead of legal names in school documentation became something our school district brought to our attention this year. We are worked to collect this information and implement this in our publication.
ethical photography
For senior advertisements, seniors and parents are allowed to submit their own photos. However, our publication does not tolerate the use of any photos containing guns, red Solo Cups, alcohol of any kind, profanity and hand signs. To ensure this, parents meet with staff members to have their photos approved for print before the ad gets designed. This process allows for multiple people to check the photos for anything inappropriate before it is too late and they are accidentally published. This year, we made the ethical decision to publish a photo of a student with a skinned dear in a senior ad. When faced with this controversial situation, we sought guidance from our principal. Since the photo did not go against the main inappropriate criteria we outlined for the parents, we had other seniors place less gory hunting photos in their ads and the photo held extreme value to the family, we allowed the photo. We worked with the parent and came to a consensus: we would crop the goriest part of the photo out, the photo would be small and in black and white to make it less gory and less noticeable. We have now decided to add "no photos containing blood or openly cut animals" to our list of criteria we will not include in senior ads to deter from an ethical issue like this from arising in the future.
In addition, when photographing large sports teams or clubs for their group photos, I always announce that no one can make any hand signs, even a peace sign or a thumbs up. If a student does this in the background of a photo, we can not use it in the book. I always remind the staffers about this when they go photograph events.
In addition, when photographing large sports teams or clubs for their group photos, I always announce that no one can make any hand signs, even a peace sign or a thumbs up. If a student does this in the background of a photo, we can not use it in the book. I always remind the staffers about this when they go photograph events.
copyright
In our publication, when using images or graphics that a staffer has not taken or created, we make sure the content is copyright free. To ensure this, we use content from Creative Commons, Flickr and other occasional resources and credit the work as described on the website. Seeking this content became necessary when covering world events in our yearbook, such as the 2020 election, that our staffers could not possibly have taken photos of.
obituaries
If a student or faculty member passes away during their time attending or working at our school, we place an obituary in the community section of the yearbook free of charge. When planning our book at the beginning of the year, we save space for obituaries in case we need it. In the case that we don't use the space, we fill it with advertisements. Obituaries are important, not only for historical and record keeping purposes, but also to demonstrate respect for our community, faculty and students.