Archive for the ‘Jon Armstrong’ Category
Rampaging for Ram-Page
So basically, Ram-Page, the RHS student newspaper, rules… but it’s getting a bad rap from some people, and was even partially responsible for the creation of this site. Most of the criticism says that Ram-Page censors articles and changes the view of the writers, and that it doesn’t let you say what you want to. To those with this opinion, you’re (1) missing the point of Ram-Page. You also could be (2) making a big deal out of a few isolated incidents (nobody’s perfect), and you certainly (3) fail to see the freedom that does come from Ram-Page.
(1) Ram-Page is not designed to be Fox Chase 5. It is not designed to be solely a forum for student opinion. While it contains an opinion section as most newspapers do, that is a mere 3 pages of its content. It is mainly a teaching tool, used to teach others journalism, page layout, and other skills in the newspaper-making process. Our newspaper wins awards because of the high quality it operates with. It’s been delivering news and relaying views (unfortunate rhyme) for over 40 years as a service to the students. Currently, it’s completely free for the students to take.
(2) Ok, so the way I understand it is, a certain writer wrote a review regarding the Battle of the Bands for his Honors Music Journal. A Feature editor asked him if he could use it as a review because he needed to fill a little space on his page. As I understand it, the Feature editor started deleting paragraphs from it because it was too long. The writer of the said article had given the “bad” and “good” of each band. The editor deleted only the “good” paragraphs. Ouch. While normally paragraph deletion would not affect the views expressed in the article, in this particular case, the deletions made the writer seem really harsh in his view of all the bands other than TBNL. It took his criticisms out of context from the compliments and made a lot of bands angry with him. I give my sincerest apologies to the writer. By the way, this writer then went on to make a blog you may have heard of: Fox Chase 5.
However, it’s important to understand that the editors are students themselves. They are still learning the ins-and-outs of journalism, and are bound to make mistakes. We work hard to eliminate mistakes, but with 42-ish articles being produced each issue, it’s hard to “catch ‘em all” ™. Also, many peoples’ articles look drastically different from what they wrote because the writers paid so little regard to journalism’s rules that the editor had to severely reword and correct the article, without changing the ideas expressed in it. I’ve heard mumblings of other incidents of editors changing the views of the author, but nothing of substance. Mostly I hear these complaints based on that fact that the writers simply don’t like a few of the editors. Cry me a river. Honestly, if there is only one major complaint out of the hundreds of articles that we publish each year, I’m happy with that.
(3) Many schools have newspapers that are censored by the school administrators, an option that a school legally can have. Our school, however, is a “public forum for student expression.” This means that the school administration has given the power of deciding all content of the newspaper to student editors. Many have heard of limited student rights in public schools and such. As far as newspapers are concerned, the limitation is the Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier decision in 1988. It stated that school officials had more authority to limit the first amendment rights of student publications. The exception is with “public forums for student expression.” Our newspaper, run by students, is thus exempt from this ruling and is entitled to full first amendment rights.
Ram-Page uses its first amendment privileges liberally. Many of the articles have angered the administration, the band department, sports advisers, people of varying political views, et cetera. The number of different topics addressed is impressive, and the number of students that actively read Ram-Page (despite popular belief) is also impressive.
On one last note, I think Fox Chase 5 is awesome too. The creators of this site provide some things that Ram-Page doesn’t; it allows people of any opinion to publish anything they want to unchanged, and allows others to respond and comment on those opinions directly on the site. I started reading the various articles and was not aware that people actually had some of the opinions expressed on the site. It’s an amazing thing… I might be addicted…
By Jon Armstrong
