Journalism and Controversy

When I was a student at Hooks High School, my passion then was as it is now: writing and news gathering. I took 2 years of Journalism. My column was the opinion column in the school paper.

During one year, a number of students were allowed to smoke on campus with their parent's permission. There was a smoking area. Then, the school board decided to do away with the smoking privileges and get rid of the smoking area, forcing students who smoked to go off campus. That seemed fine, since smoking is bad for you, and we don't want our children to think it's okay.

One day I went to the teacher's lounge to get something for a teacher. When the door was opened, you could smell the smoke coming from the teacher's lounge. As a smoker, who was now not allowed to smoke on campus, this infuriated me. The teachers had no right to ask us to do something they weren't willing to do for themselves. I determined to write my column that week on smoking on campus, and why teachers could smoke and we couldn't.

My teacher thought it was a great idea. When I finished, and turned in my work, she showed it to our principle. Then she came to me and told me that she would not be running it in the newspaper, but that my grade would reflect an "A".

I was angry. At this point, I didn't care about the A. I had worked hard on the article. Why couldn't she post it? She explained to me that our principle was, in essence, our editor. And, if I were to work for a newspaper, anything I wrote would have to meet the approval of the editor. In this case, the editor of our school newspaper considered the article "too controversial".

What about freedom of press? What about freedom of speech? I asked her. What about all those things we learned from our textbook? Isn't it the job of the paper to expose controversy?

She agreed, but would not budge. So, I determined that one day, I would own my own paper, and I would be the editor. Then, I could post whatever I wanted.