When Chicago State University's response to a humiliating federal-court defeat -- which found that the college had violated the free-speech rights of its fired newspaper adviser and former editor-in-chief -- was to issue a triumphant news release declaring victory, you knew it wouldn't be long before the college returned to the First Amendment doghouse.Twenty-three days, to be exact.Having learned nothing from U.S.
Author: Frank LoMonte
Annoying people of Connecticut, rejoice — you’re safe for at least a year
A dangerously broad Connecticut bill that purported to criminalize remarks about a person's "traits or characteristics" in a way that causes embarrassment is considered dead for the 2012 legislative session.Senate Bill 456 was scheduled for action Monday in the Joint Committee on Judiciary.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Earth-shaking reporting tips from the pros will have evasive sources quaking
After the devastating Long Beach earthquake of 1933, California swiftly enacted an unprecedented set of construction safety standards requiring new schools to be certified as quake-resistant -- and then, according to a 19-month-long investigative report, did very little to see that the standards were followed.To the contrary, a team of reporters from the nonprofit investigative website California Watch found, the job of certifying schools as earthquake-proof was put in the hands of questionably competent inspectors, and overseen by bureaucrats with cozy ties to the construction companies they were supposed to regulate.The result? Many thousands of construction projects never got the safety certification required by California's Field Act -- and hundreds more cannot be verified because their inspection files were simply closed due to missing paperwork.Public schools may be in need of a shake-up -- but not the kind that registers on the Richter scale.The journalists' April 2011 multimedia package, "On Shaky Ground," shared the highest award, the IRE Medal, bestowed Monday by the journalism training organization Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.The work of the California Watch team, who partnered with journalists from San Francisco's KQED radio, is breathtaking in its use of every presentation method known to journalism -- even a smartphone app to help parents detect whether their kids' school has been identified as deficiently constructed.
College journalists win IRE recognition for public-service journalism that jumps the campus boundaries
Tax dollars for economic development in blighted urban neighborhoods are instead diverted to build a corporate headquarters in a thriving business district.
Student gay-rights advocate loses initial legal challenge, but makes some favorable First Amendment precedent
A federal judge has refused to reinstate an Atlanta-area student government leader who was removed from office after pushing to open the competition for "prom court" to same-sex couples -- but the ruling is hardly one for Reuben Lack's school, or any school, to celebrate.U.S.
From the “Right Not to Be Annoyed” Department … where do you go to report annoying legislation?
In their never-ending quest to make Connecticut a less annoying place, state legislators -- apparently having solved unemployment, crime and school funding -- have trained their sights on annoying speech.A bill introduced March 22 by the Senate Judiciary Committee -- which is up for a hearing in that committee Thursday -- would create the new misdemeanor criminal offense of "Electronic Harassment." (Note to Dave Barry: "Electronic Harassment" would be an exceptional name for a band.)A person would be guilty of the crime of "Electronic Harassment" under the following conditions: (1) Transmitting information over any electronic medium (anything from radio to the Web to texting), (2) that is based on a person's "actual or perceived traits or characteristics," (3) that causes a person "substantial embarrassment or humiliation within an academic or professional community," and (4) is done with an intent to "annoy" or "alarm" the person.Read that carefully, and think about how much First Amendment real estate it covers.For example ... how about this Al Franken column, "Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot." Transmitted electronically?
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: When the police investigation ends, your investigation is just getting started
Using an under-utilized information source -- the closed files of police investigators -- NBC News has shed new light on what campus police knew in 1998 about now-indicted coach Jerry Sandusky's "private workouts" with young boys in the Penn State locker room.NBC's widely cited reports, accompanied by original police documents posted online, are adding to the public's understanding about whether police responded adequately to the earliest known complaints that Sandusky touched kids inappropriately -- letting him go with the admonition to stop showering with boys, despite a psychologist's warning that the coach's behavior looked like "a typical pedophile 'overture.'"Because institutional memories in newsrooms are short -- and those in student newsrooms especially so -- journalists sometimes forget to follow up on cases that have been closed.
With apologies to Kelly Clarkson, what doesn’t kill student editors makes them stronger
When students know they've been wrongfully censored by their schools, they commonly react in one of two ways.
Privacy group’s challenge to Department of Education FERPA regs could hamper school accountability
Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution features a multi-part investigative blockbuster that uses computer-assisted reporting to identify suspiciously sharp gains in student aptitude test scores in districts across the country -- gains that, in Atlanta, were found to be evidence of widespread cheating by administrators and teachers.According to the AJC findings, about 200 school districts nationwide -- including schools in Houston, St.
Censorship FAIL: Refusal to publish atheism column puts school district’s policies under the constitutional microscope
Unless you are one of the financial backers of "John Carter," it is hard to conceive of a more disastrous flop than the Lenoir City School District's efforts to suppress a teenager's column about religious indoctrination in schools.Had Krystal Myers' column, "No Rights, the Life of an Atheist," been allowed to run in the Lenoir City High School newspaper, its impact would have been limited to the Panther Press' tiny audience.