By Mike Hiestand
Enough wordy columns! This month, let’s get right to it. Here are a dozen legal “bytes” that address (in no particular order) some of the most common questions asked by high school journalists and their advisers:
1. Yes, you can legally print the names of minors as long as your information is accurate, newsworthy and lawfully obtained.
2. No, giving a copyright owner credit (for example, “Courtesy of Newsweek) is no substitute for actually getting the copyright owner’s permission to use the material.
3. Including the phrase “In my opinion” (for example, “In my opinion the principal illegally used school buses for a family vacation”) does not create an automatic shield to libel. Neither does simply reprinting what someone else has said. (For example, “‘The principal used school buses for a family vacation,’ said John Doe.”)
4. Nothing in the law requires schools to prohibit the publication of student names or photos in student-edited media on the Internet. Indeed such a rule, when applied to online student media, can easily result in the inaccurate identification of individuals, which is not just bad journalism but legally quite risky.
5. Despite what they might think, public school officials do not have an unlimited license to censor high school student media. The First Amendment still offers all students some ? and in many cases, a great deal of ? legal protection.
6. Material that does not have a copyright notice on it (for example, Copyright © 2006 Student Press Law Center) is often still protected by copyright law.
7. You are almost always legally safe shooting and publishing photos taken in a public setting.
8. Journalists do not have a special license to violate the law, even when investigating important news stories. For example, underage reporters that participate in a “sting” operation to see if local stores sell alcohol/cigarettes to minors or photographers who trespass on private property to take a photo run the risk of being prosecuted for breaking the law.
9. Students are legally responsible for everything they publish. Being a minor is no automatic shield from liability.
10. Public school officials cannot ban in-school distribution of all underground or independent student publications. Such publications are entitled to significant First Amendment protection.
11. Material on the Internet is not free for the taking. The same copyright rules that protect printed material also protect images, graphics, sounds and text published online.
12. There is no church/state conflict when students alone create and make the decision to publish stories about religious activities or beliefs in the student media.
That does it for now. Keep in mind, though, that these legal “bytes” are just that. They should point you in the right direction, but if you’d like to dig in a bit deeper, more information about the topics above is available on the SPLC website or by contacting the Center directly.