STUDENT JOURNALISTS REQUIRE T HE LESSONS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

From time to time, the issue of press freedoms for students, both in high schools and in colleges and universities, becomes a hot topic. This usually happens whenever a high school prinicipal or a college dean lays down the law and prevents the publication of some story or editorial written by students.

Many Missourians will remember the incident in the 1980s at Hazelton High School near St. Louis that ultimately resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision. That case said school administrators had the authority to make decisions about them appropriateness of what is published in school-sponsored newspapers.

For several years in a row, a St. Louis representative, Joan Bray, has introduced a bill in the General Assembly to give students complete editorial control, even in those school newspapers funded by school districts at taxpayer expense. The bill is floating around in Jefferson City again this year. It may not even reach a House vote. If it does, it should be voted down once and for all.

Proponents of unfettered press rights for students journalists are prone to quote the First Amendment and talk at length about censorship. These same proponents also fear that young minds are somehow trampled in the pursuite of a full and complete education by strong-armed administrators who exercise their right of final review on what is published in school-sponsored publications.

In fact, such oversight is a valuable lesson for young journalists who may someday face just such editorial decision making in the real world of a newspaper newsroom or a radio or television station.

In the real world of journalism, someone other than a writer or photographer or graphics designer always has the final say on what is published or broadcast. This could be the owner, or the publisher, or the editor or any number of layers of accountability between the reporter and a newspaper's readers or a television station's viewers.

Students who want unfettered access to the reading public have an alternative: publications that aren't sponsored by school districts. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that student publications produced away from school at the expense of a student or group of students enjoy the same rights of free speech and free press as another other newspaper. This even extends to distributing such unsanctioned publications at school.

But a good lesson for students to learn is that in almost every walk of life -- journalism is just one -- there is a system of accountability in which the newest employee seldom has the final say.