This past Sunday the continuing story of the censorship of the Oak Ridge High School student newspaper the Oak Leaf played out on two local Knoxville television stations and in an editorial in the Knoxville News Sentinel. While this story has garnered nation coverage and attention this was the day where the local community finally had a chance to hear both sides of the story.

First up was WBIR Channel 10’s “Inside Tennessee” with host Robin Wilhoit, panelists Don Bosch, Dennis Francis, Susan Williams, and guests Oak Ridge High School newspaper editor Brittany Thomas, UT Journalism Professor Dr. Dwight Teeter, and Oak Ridge School Superintendent Tom Bailey.

School Superintendent Tom Bailey started off by complimenting Brittany Thomas the school’s newspaper editor. First impressions are that Bailey is educated, articulate, and genteel.

Tom Bailey starts off with, “we could have been sued” over the tattoo article. No mention of the birth control article. Bailey says the school could have been criminally liable over the tattoo article.

Dr. Dwight Teeter from UT School of Journalism says he felt the tattoo issue has no merit and would not have resulted in a court case.

Don Bosch talks about the tattoo article and expressed his opinion that there was no basis for a lawsuit and that it is a misdemeanor to put a tattoo on a minor. He implied the tattoo excuse was a red herring.

Susan Williams asked about the editorial process. Bailey jumps on this as another excuse to justify his actions. He tried to say that the process had not been followed but later we learn that is no clearly defined process. Bailey looks and sounds weak at this point.

Brittany Thomas explains that several articles have been written about birth control in the past in the school newspaper and that one of her articles on birth control had won an award. Again Bailey chimes in and compliments Thomas as he says, “I said she was a good writer”. The program has been on air for 12 minutes and this is the first mention of the article on birth control.

Dr. Teeter then scored a home run when he asked if there was a set of written guidelines or standards at the school newspaper. Bailey rumbled and rambled but finally said there was no defined policy in place. We look at “practice to understand the process”. Bailey’s fallback was “we look to the past” to see how other principles had censored, er, made decisions about the paper.

Don Bosch questions the process and says the advisor approved the articles and then 1800 copies were printed which were later confiscated.

Thomas said in her history of 4 years at the paper that articles were never submitted to the principle for approval. She said the masthead of the paper clearly states the paper is a “public forum” and the opinions contained in the paper may not be the opinions of the staff. Bailey looks very uncomfortable at this point.

Bailey states the paper is “clearly not a public forum” it is the school newspaper and also said the paper had been censored by the prior school principle Mr. Green. Bailey read from a prepared statement and gave several reasons that appeared to come from an attorney. This “public forum” definition may be played out in court. Bailey was very sensitive to this and overreacted to this phrase. This is not a man that should play “Texas Hold Em”.

Dennis Francis asked Dr. Tweeter about how the Hazelwood ruling will be affected if this Oak Ridge case goes to court. Wow. Can it be that this will be the case to confront the Supreme Court ruling Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier?

Brittany Thomas closed with saying that the newspapers lawyers will meet with the School Boards lawyers to discuss a policy that is more lenient.

Next up on WATE Channel 6’s “Tennessee This Week” with host Gene Patterson is guest panelist George Korda and the writer of the article on birth control Oak Ridge High School student Krystal Meyers.

George Korda defended Tom Bailey saying that this was an editorial judgment and that the Superintendent is the publisher of the paper and had the right to decide which articles could be printed. Korda said that the article could disturb parents of a 14-year-old child.

Gene Patterson then said to Korda, “you cannot bury your head in the sand” and that according to the statistics in the article it was clear that some 14-year-old children were having sex. Patterson said Korda was creating a paper straw man. Fortunately the host did tell Korda that their guest Krystal Meyers was the one they needed to listen to and she had a chance to speak. She said that she agreed to change the wording about the pregnancy test but refused to remove the quotes from Dr. Darling because that was the focus of the article. TTW only had ten minutes in the program and not much time was allowed for Krystal to address what had happened.

Finally Knoxville News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy shares his views with an editorial titled, “Time to fold a newspaper”. Everyone needs to read this editorial. Not because it is well written or that it offers some critical insight. You need to read it to understand this quote in context, “The safe way to run a newspaper is to write fluff, avoid controversy, support the status quo and let special interests, government and sacred cows go unchallenged. Of course, then nobody wants to read you.”

Pot, kettle, you know the story.

McElroy closes with, “Personal aside to Brittany Thomas, Oak Leaf editor in chief:

Call me. I may have some work for you.”

So to wrap up the Sunday coverage of this important issue we learn that this may be headed to court and could possibly be a challenge to the Hazelwood Supreme Court ruling. We also learn that Knoxville News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy either has a keen sense of irony or is completely clueless to the current status of his own newspaper. If there is any poetic justice someday we will see writer Krystal Meyers and editor Brittany Thomas at a local newspaper in Tennessee. I think we should all be very proud of these two young people.

Posted in uncategorized on December 5th, 2005 by #9 | RSS 2.0 |