December was a hectic month for the North Star, Bloomington High School North’s news magazine. The North Star comes out every three weeks, on dates set by the editorial staff before the school year begins. However, as we were planning stories and photos for our December issue, set to come out Dec. 14th, our staff had an unusual idea.
Our adviser Ryan Gunterman had planned a First Amendment forum for our school on Dec. 13, where renowned journalism professors and high school advisers from around the state were coming to speak about the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Our staff decided it would be a good idea to inform students about the First Amendment and to interest them in the issue before the forum.
So, we got ambitious. We decided to create not a special section in our December issue, but rather an entire, 8-page special issue devoted to First Amendment awareness, to come out before the forum, on Dec. 7. The first four pages of the issue were each devoted to a freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. These freedoms were illustrated through features stories about the pledge of allegiance, online speech on Facebook and Myspace, recent cases involving freedom of the press and our school corporation’s press policy, and local Right to Life protestors. These stories were followed by a staff editorial, written by myself, and a column emphasizing the importance of First Amendment freedoms. The back page of the issue was a story written in remembrance of David Adams, a student media director at IU who the staff felt deserved to be honored for his work with students and support of the First Amendment. We decided to make the overall design for the issue resemble a manila folder, emphasizing the fact that we were conveying important information to our readers.
Creating this special issue required extra work from everyone on staff, especially the editors. Many people ended up writing one or two more stories than they usually write each month, which around the time of final exams was a lot to ask. Not only this, but the special issue required us to stay after school more than usual. For each issue, our editors stay after school on Monday to finish designs, often not leaving until 7 or 7:30 p.m. Afterward, I take home print-outs of the entire paper and edit it, returning the next day to make changes with the help of my fellow editors. This stressful experience usually only happens once every three weeks. However, with our decision to create the special issue, in December, we had to go through this procedure two Mondays in a row.
The issue was well worth the effort. As a student journalist, I know the importance of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment and have a deep appreciation for them, ingrained in me since my first day of Introduction to Journalism my freshman year. Therefore, it is appalling to me how little most high school students know about the First Amendment. According to a 2006 Knight Foundation survey, 76 percent of students say that they either don’t know anything about the First Amendment or they take it for granted. This lack of knowledge was obvious at the forum held at our school, where one senior even asked what the First Amendment stated. By producing this special issue and addressing the First Amendment through interesting stories and photos, I believe the North Star did its duty to the students at Bloomington High School North and enlightened them about one of the most important guarantees of freedom in the U.S.
Elizabeth Munroe
Editor in Chief, the North Star
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