Dear Boonville: It’s awkward to write about your own newspaper in the third person.
What’s more, it poses a major ethical dilemma: How can we write about an important subject and still maintain a sense of fairness?
That question confronted our newsroom this week in preparing the page 1A article about the process leading up to the decision to print The Pirate Press, Boonville High School’s student newspaper, with a Jefferson City-based company.
Larger papers than the BDN might ask a third party to cover the story or work with an ombudsman — a go-between for the paper and the public — to prepare coverage.
We don’t have that luxury, but we didn’t think it was optional to leave the story alone, either.
BDN readers will remember the controversy that surrounded Superintendent Mark Ficken’s decision in October to stop distribution of some copies of The Pirate Press. That decision and the coverage about it by the BDN and other media, and First Amendment advocates, prompted criticism of both the BDN and the Boonville R-1 School District.
The story matters because it prompted change, regardless of how you feel about it. The district ended its longstanding practice of allowing The Pirate Press to be inserted into the BDN. Administrators waffled on whether they would post the student paper exclusively online or print it, then reassigned longtime journalism teacher Stephanie Carey to duties that didn’t include managing the paper.
Today’s article represents another chapter in the evolution of The Pirate Press. It outlines administrators’ reasons for switching printers — full-color was key — and their thoughts about the decision.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which company prints The Pirate Press. Certainly there is a business component, and there is a modest amount of money to be gained by the winner of the bid, but that amount pales in comparison to any number of other educational expenditures.
In reality, what matters is that the students who will produce The Pirate Press get an education in how to exercise their First Amendment rights. They should do that within appropriate parameters, of course. But the fact that they are young people operating under the tutelage of an academic body does not preclude them from freedom of speech. Indeed, the academy should encourage that freedom to the greatest extent possible.
I trust those are points we can all agree on.
Contact news and online editor Nate Birt by calling 882-5335 or e-mailing nate@boonvilledailynews.com.
