Law & Ethics
Ensuring press freedom and keeping a diverse and safe environment for my staffers has always been of upmost importance to me. I've done this through advocating to the school principal to reconsider publishing articles to even taking my skills outside of iPatriot.
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We've fostered a welcoming community in our newsroom, where we try to feature and adapt to everyone's many cultures and background as well.
Politics and Pressing News
As I do attend a private school, we often do face prior restraint from our administrators. We are asked to not publish anything political, as well as articles that avoid contradicting the school and their decisions. With a change in principal's this year, the school has cracked down on covering news stories outside of our school environment. There have been some risky articles we chose to publish: Cypress Bay School gas leak, CEO of United Healthcare killed and Donald Trump secures second term as President. For all of these articles, we had to send them to our principal to read and approve beforehand. These restrictions have led to staffers having to become creative in news coverage.
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One of the most controversial articles written by iPatriotPost was an article I personally had written, in which I critiqued the school's new honor roll breakfast system. I personally was asked to talk to the principal over my article, as the article raised direct complaints to the school's new policy. However, due to the sheer amount of views and readership the article had received, as well as the overwhelming popular support, I was able to keep it published.
Mediawise
In order to expand my journalistic experience, I was selected to join the MediaWise Teen Fact-Checking Network team. In this paid position, I create short-form content fact-checking wild claims from anything from Taylor Swift conspiracy theories to political election run-downs. After finding false claims online, I would write a 60 to 90 second script and record Tik Tok-style videos.
After over 6 months with MediaWise, I was offered an opportunity recently to participate in a Stanford Media Lab PhD study. In this study I am currently finishing, I have to make over 10 Tik Toks to publish to the public to see which video form and style they respond to the best in regards to fact-checking. We were also measuring if audiences paid more attention to claims if they were "false," "a mixed bag," or "true." Below are a few of the videos I have created while working with MediaWise since this summer.
Cat's Claw
DNC
Voter's Rules
One last opportunity I had to help my staff gain as much freedom as possible was actually at the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), where I met Cathy Kuhlmeir from the famed Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeir supreme court case establishing the precedent of prior restraint and school oversight on publication.
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Despite the devastating outcome of the case, Cathy used her session time to work with the Student Press Law Center (SPLC). We were actually able to meet SPLC representatives at her session as well.
