News Literacy
In our divided world, the media has continuously been under fire for spreading fake news. As a local news outlet for the North Penn community, we strive to ensure that we are a reputable source, even if we’re a high school paper because at the end of the day, local news is local news—and it’s essential.
Fact Checking
Unfortunately, we ran into some issues regarding legitimacy in quotes this year. A student reached out to us to let us know that one of our writers asked him if she could fake a quote said by him. When I received the article, I kept that in mind and followed through with regular editing and suggestions. Considering her only quote was a fake quote, I suggested to get more quotes to get other perspectives on her topic since she lacked any in the first place.
We ended up not publishing her piece. There was no way to confirm that her other quotes were real, so we scratched it and let her know that we did it for the sake of integrity of our site. We were not going to publish false quotes or information.
Bias
We get comments about our site being “too left-leaning” very often, so this comment in particular was nothing new. While we do happen to have more staff members with liberal ideologies, we encourage those with differing opinions to speak up and write about it if they want. In response to comments like these, we reply by offering them a chance to write an article. We allow submissions from those outside the staff and have published a few throughout this year.
We never actually hear back from those who criticize our site, but our offer still stands.
Utilizing Side-by-Side Option
If there are topics with two clear sides, we ask the staff if they would like to write a side-by-side article on it. This allows our site to have multiple opinions that lean from both sides, liberal or conservative. Readers can look at our site and feel represented and staff members can feel like they have voice. It encourages a diverse amount of opinions and allows for better discussions among the staff and the school.
No room for nepotism
As a member of the staff and the president of our school’s environmental club, I often want to showcase the club as much as possible, whether it is covering the events we hold or writing about the initiatives we have taken to make our school a more sustainable place. Our advisor and editorial board established a rule where we cannot write about groups/organizations we are a part of and our families to prevent bias.
If I have a newsworthy idea related to my club, I’ll offer the idea for someone in the group to take. As for interviewing family members, the only exceptions is when we’re publishing a piece that revolves mostly around ourselves. We had a staff writer talk about his family’s experience with hybrid learning among different grade levels. He spoke to his younger brother who was in middle school and his younger sister who was in elementary school. We also allow our reporters to interview family members if they are a key interviewee for the particular article, like if they are part of the cabinet of the club or if they were the lead coordinator of an event, but that hasn’t occurred yet.