Sample Newspaper, Yearbook Staff Editorial Policies

Editorial Policy by Jacqui Sheehan
J425 class participant Fall 2001

 

The following pages serve as the editorial policy for Perry Meridian High School newspaper staff. This policy has been written by the staff and the adviser, and concerns the entire newspaper, not just the editorial page. The second section of this sample policy guide offers "yearbook specific" editorial policy statements.

General Purposes, Mission Policies

            The purpose of our newspaper is to inform and entertain our audience, which includes the student body, faculty, the local community, and other schools’ journalism programs, on subjects that may affect readers. The newspaper also aims to be a forum for the voices of the audience to be heard. Finally, the newspaper serves as a hands-on learning tool for the staff as they have the responsibility of putting out this information in a clear, meaningful and journalistic way.

            The decision-making process of content in the newspaper is left up to the student staff with the help of the adviser. Although the staff is open to talking with the administration about story ideas, the final consent of the decision-making process lies with the duly appointed editor-in-chief and the appointed editorial board.

            The editorial board is the decision-making group for the newspaper staff. It includes the editor-in-chief, business/advertising editors, photography editor and section editors, but attendance to the meetings is open to all staff members and members of the administration. Meetings will be twice a month, but they can also be called by the adviser or the editor-in-chief if there are special needs. The board is in charge of making the decisions on what will go into the newspaper, and a majority vote determines those decisions. The adviser is there not to vote, but to help give comments and concerns to the staff members prior to the voting. If a controversial issue arises, it will be voted on in the same manner, but it is the common assumption that there will be nothing published in the newspaper that is libelous, obscene to minors, advocates illegal activities, is copyrighted, or may cause substantial disruption to the school.

Opinion Policy

            It is vital that the audience of the newspaper realizes that material placed on the opinion page of the newspaper is just that—the opinion of the writers. The staff will not publish any material that could be libelous on that page, but it is highly important to realize that as citizens abiding by the Constitution of the United States, people have the right to voice their opinions even when they aren’t the popular viewpoint. Speech is protected as long as it does not infringe on someone else, and our newspaper will support broad expressions of opinion 

Letters Policy

            The newspaper staff welcomes letters from students, faculty, and community members as they give a constructive way for more people to express their opinions, criticisms, and reactions to school issues. The writer must sign the letters, and there will be either personal contact or Emails sent out before publishing to confirm that the name given is valid. If a letter has more than two people represented in the writing, there will be a main author credited with a byline for the supporters, but all must sign the letter before publishing with verifications. The letters must be 250 words or less, and can be edited for grammar and content if necessary by the staff as long as the changes do not affect the meaning of the letter. Each writer will be contacted to make sure of this before publication. Because of space, not all letters are guaranteed to be published, but the staff will do its best to cover all topics fully.

            The letters to the editors can be placed in the box outside of the journalism room or in the main office, or they can be sent to the letters Email address provided in the newspaper each issue.           

Staff Editorial Policy

            An editorial will appear in each issue on the opinion page, and the editor-in-chief will write the article or assign the writer for the staff editorial. The discussion of the content will be by the editorial board, and those who do not agree may write dissenting staff opinions if appropriate. The staff editorial will not be bylined, but all other articles in the newspaper will be as well as photographs, photo illustrations, and artwork.

Guest Columns and Trivia Policy

            The majority of the articles are written by the staff, but a guest column may be included if the staff feels that it enhances a specific topic. The articles will be edited as with regular material and will be bylined.

            The publications staffs will not endorse items such as gossip columns, love letters, student best/worst, and “senior most likely to” surveys. There is a probability of libelous and objectionable material involved, and extreme caution should be used with such material.

 

Errors Policy

            If errors occur that are damaging to the subject, or are false in any way, a correction box will be printed in the next issue. This will go in the section that the story was published in, and will merely tell the readers that the error was made; the staff apologizes, and then tells the true information. A mistake will not be restated when the correction is posted as to not further the repetition of the error.

Obituary Policy

            If a faculty member or student dies during the course of the school year, the newspaper staff will treat the death in a respectful and conservative manner. An obituary, with the person’s name, school activities, date of birth and death, and any other pertinent information, will appear in the news section. If the family consents, a picture of the person will be used. In such difficult situations, it is best to keep the coverage simple and uniform if possible.

Content Policy

            The staff will cover Perry Meridian High School as its main beat, but there will be coverage of local, state, national and world events as well when needed. It would be unfair to say that a learning tool of journalistic integrity would delete all news worthy events from its paper to simply cover the high school only.

Contact and Staff Feedback Policy

            Each section of the newspaper will have an Email account and a contact person (usually the editor of the section) for readers to be able to contact the reporters and staff members. This will be provided on the top of each section, and will give readers a chance to share opinions and concerns with the desk without writing an official letter to the editor.

Yearbook-Specific Editorial Policies

The following pages serve as the editorial policy for Perry Meridian High School yearbook staff. This policy has been written by the staff and the adviser, and concerns the entire yearbook.

General Policy

            The purpose of our yearbook is to inform and entertain our audience in a broad, fair and accurate manner on all subjects that have affected the readers over the course of one school year. The entire student body makes up the potential audience with other audiences being faculty, staff, community members and other journalism programs. The yearbook serves as a hands-on learning tool for the staff as they have the responsibility of putting out this information in a clear, meaningful and journalistic way.

            The decision-making process of content in the yearbook is left up to the student staff with the help of the adviser. Although the staff is open to talking with the administration about story ideas, the final consent of the decision-making process lies with the duly appointed editor-in-chief and the appointed editorial board.

            The editorial board is the decision-making group for the yearbook staff. It includes the editor-in-chief, business/advertising editors, photography editor and section editors, but attendance to the meetings is open to all staff members and members of the administration. Meetings will be weekly, but they can also be called by the adviser or the Editor-in-Chief if there are special needs. The board is in charge of making the decisions on what will go into the yearbook ladder, but many of these decisions will happen early in the year or during the summer before the school year begins. The adviser is there not to vote, but to help give comments and concerns to the staff members prior to the voting. If a controversial issue arises, it will be voted on in the same manner,  but it is the common assumption that there will be nothing published in the newspaper that is libelous, obscene to minors, advocates illegal activities, is copyrighted, or may cause substantial disruption to the school.

Distribution Policy

            Although changes may occur from year to year, this yearbook will be distributed in the late spring of each school year. Coverage will include August through early March, but each fall, a supplement of the material missed from March-June will be handed out to students who had bought books the previous year. For graduated seniors, the supplements will be sent to their home addresses or they can pick them up at the school. The supplement will be finished by the prior year’s staff during the spring and early summer of the previous year.

 

Guest Columns and Trivia Policy

            The majority of the articles are written by the staff, but a guest column may be included if the staff feels that it enhances a specific topic. The articles will be edited as with regular material and will be bylined.

            The publications staffs will not endorse items such as gossip columns, love letters, student best/worst, and “senior most likely to” surveys. There is a probability of libelous material involved, and the audience that these types of articles reach is small in number.

Obituary Policy

            If a faculty member or student dies during the course of the school year, the yearbook staff will treat the death in a respectful and conservative manner. An obituary, with the person’s name, school activities, date of birth and death, and any other pertinent information, will appear in the album section. In the roster of students, the deceased person’s picture will appear as normal, and beside their name will be their date of birth and death.       

 

Content Policy

            A yearbook has many goals, but its main goal is as an historical document of one school year. The staff will choose to cover what went on at school with great detail, but also try to highlight the life and times that the students are experiencing. There may be coverage of local, national and world events pertinent to the school year, but a focus on Perry Meridian High School will be standard.

            All articles will be bylined, excluding the writing on division pages and opening and end pages. All pictures will have photo credit, as well. Designers will not get credit for their pages on the page, except on the staff page when their names are listed.

 

Contact Policy

            The yearbook staff will have a contact mail address so that students can write to the staff during the school year with suggestions, questions and concerns for the yearbook publication. The business/advertising staffs will have a separate account so that businesses and potential buyers of the book can contact them directly with business concerns.

Portrait Policy

            All students must get their portraits taken by the specified studio chosen for the yearbook. There will be no charge for students to have their pictures taken, but they may have the choice to purchase pictures packages.

            Seniors must have their portraits taken by a specified studio, usually separate from the rest of the school, and they also will have the option of purchasing the portraits.

            All students and staff, excluding seniors, (who will have ample opportunity to take pictures at the specified studio during the summer, and once during the school year) will have a total of two opportunities to have their pictures taken.

            If a student chooses not to get his/her picture taken, there will be a “not pictured” section at the end of each grade level and faculty section of the portraits that will give each person’s name.

            There will be team and club photos taken one time, and these will be taken by a specified studio as well. There is no guarantee that these will be placed on the specific spreads of the activities, but they will be in the yearbook with names attached. If students are absent the day(s) of their group photos, there will be no make-up sessions scheduled.

Advertising Policy

            All advertising used by the staff has the same guidelines as editorial content. If advertising is accepted, it does not mean that it is an endorsement by the school or the staff. No ads will be sold for the yearbook that endorse illegal activities or illegal activities to minors. Controversial ads do appear, and the choice to run these ads will fall in the hands of the editor-in-chief and the editorial board. It is not necessary for Perry Meridian to run ads giving both sides of any issue.      

The rates of advertising sales will be determined by the business/advertising staff, and will appear in its portfolio.

Book Sales Policy

            Any student has the option of purchasing a yearbook, and the price of it will be determined by when the student purchases the book throughout the school year. The total price will also be determined by the staff as a whole, and can increase as the year continues.

            Flawed books can be exchanged with or without writing, because the publisher will credit flawed books. It will be the responsibility of the buyer to provide proof of purchase, but the staff will also be keeping records. Ultimately, it is the receipt or a check stub that will validate if a student receives his/her book or not.

Sources Used:

-Editorial content handouts from class

-“Taking Issue” from class