Whoa -- lots going on. And, lucky you, some of it is local!
1. Check out this article from the Marin IJ regarding a student at Redwood High that has been suspended for distributing an underground newspaper. What are your thoughts on this situation? Remind yourself of some recent readings on the law and websites and comment on whether or not this student should have been suspended. Is it relevant to include that this student has gotten in trouble with the school prior to this incident?
2. Cartoon time. Here are some great editorial cartoons from the last week. What do you think? Effective? Not so much? What role do editorial cartoons play in the media these days? In this charged political climate?
Housing
Baseball
Obama Spending
Swing Voting
Share your ideas, brilliance, insights.
6 comments:
In response to the IJ article...
I think it's ridiculous that Massoumi was suspended for distributing flyers about his underground newspaper. I went to his website to see the actual publication and after reading some of it, it seems that he is within his rights. There is nothing that would encourage other students to engage in illegal behavior and nothing that specifically targets an individual from the school. Many of his comments are discriminatory and I found them generally offensive. But as an illustration of the point he is trying to make, when we don't agree with another viewpoint, we suppress it until it's invisible. I definitely agree with Mr. Scheer (who happens to be an MA parent) that it's necessary to educate students outside of the classroom of their freedoms. When a student is exploring his rights and ideas, schools should encourage, not punish him for it.
I suggest that other people who read this article check out the actual paper that Massoumi created. It's an interesting perspective and example of what press can be for different people.
Also...
I really like political cartoons. We did a lot of work with them in Modern World sophomore year. They're a great way to look at history and current events. I like them a lot as a way to hook readers so that journalists can make points that they might make in an editorial in an artistic and punchy way. I would love to run some cartoons, but the staff seemed less than thrilled about capitalist platypus when I suggested it. Anyone feel like drawing?
I agree with Anjuli in that political cartoons are a very effective way of getting points across fast. However, I think that the lack of them in the Voice is not due to a lack of excitement, but rather a lack of inspiration for funny graphics to complement articles. I would love to create cartoons (provided that I’m able to draw it) for the paper! (Anjuli, I don’t even recall hearing about your platypus idea!) But, at a school as biased as Marin Academy, I find it very difficult to poke fun at serious topics while still respecting both sides of the issue.
If cartoons were to make their way into the Voice, I think that they would be more successful as a critique of very light topics, such as the cafeteria or random embarrassing moments, rather than as a serious analysis of topics like politics or voting. (similar in theory to the “unseen, unheard” idea that we came up with in class). With the Voice implementing more and more creative design and diverse graphics this year, I think that comedy in the form of political cartoons could be very effective in the Voice as long as we avoid having an “attacking” tone.
-Tiras Lin
It appears that massoumi has taken down the paper or stored it on a different website because I was unable to access it. However, he should not have been suspended for expressing his point of view even though it appears to have been pretty offensive. I played basketball with this kid for two years and frankly he is a complete creep. However, unless there is a rule against having this on a school computer and that is the reason he was suspended, the school should not have involved itself in this issue. Students must be able to publish their views free from the oversight of the school. We must at least listen to other's opinions even if we don't agree with them. Shutting out intolerant opinions is in itself a form of intolerance. Having not been able to read the degree of intolerance in this paper, I wonder how different it is than the Texas football player's facebook comment and why the schools' similar reactions to intolerant comments have drawn such different responses.
I think that it was a little extreme for Redwood to suspend Massoumi for distributing flyers about his newspaper. If he took it off the school computers and runs it on his own then it shouldn't be within the school's rights to suspend him. Especially since the paper doesn't personally attack anyone from Redwood. And although the name is clearly a play on Redwood's own paper's name, the name is "public" and so it should be fair game for anyone.
It was interesting that the reported mentioned Massoumi's track record with the school at the end because it almost changed the angle of the article for me. First it's all about free speech and it was pretty convincing that the guy shouldn't have been suspended but then for a second it seems that maybe the guy is just a trouble maker and he isn't really about what he says he is. I still think he shouldn't have been suspended but I think the whole article is a good example of how reporters -- however subtly and "neutrally" -- can change the tone of the article and therefore sometimes the readers opinion.
In response to the break-in at the Waldorf, I thought it was very well written. I agree with Mary about the colorful wording and how it read almost like a story. The article was very intersting and used descriptive language, and while I agree that we need to incorporate both of those characteristics to the voice, I feel that it is difficult for us. Our articles do not focus on such specific moments like a shooting that take place in short time. They also do not occur in places that everyone in the community is not familiar or uniquely designed like the Waldorf Astoria. Though I do agree that these are things we should value in our writing, I feel like we can only incorporate such colorful language and structure in our stories to a certain degree.
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