<p>Does it have to play to what the supreme overlord of the school, the principal, wants to be published?</p>
<p>Basically a friend and I are writing an investigative piece about physical education at my school and how it’s doing a ton of stuff wrong according to the Department of Education. It’s going to be incriminating. Do we have to tone it down? We want to rip apart everyone and everything that deserves to.</p>
<p>Yes. Yes it does. Like it or not. If you want freedom of speech/ or the press - use an independent blog. And realize there may still be consequences at school for blowing the whistle. You must be sure to talk to administrators and let them defend or respond to the problems you are raising - and include it in your article. Don’t do an ambush - it’s not responsible journalism in any form.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to do your investigation, interview admin/teachers to get their response, write a fair and balanced article and submit for publication.</p>
<p>Yes, of course I’m going to interview everyone I’ll be talking about.</p>
<p>No insult intended - just that I have read high school articles that did not always do that :)</p>
<p>Yes. In most schools the principals won’t let you publish that since they usually preview what the articles in the newspaper are going to be before they’re published. As mentioned above it would be a better idea to post on a blog then share it around. </p>
<p>If there are concerns you really have you could talk to a trusted teacher about it to see if it’s a unknown issue to most of the school staff. If everyone is aware of it but refuses to do anything about it we can assume they’re fine with the situation. So you’ll have better luck with a blog post or talking to the district’s superintendent.</p>
<p>Yes, the principal (well, ultimately the superintendent) has the last say in what goes on your newspaper. In my gov class we studied some Supreme Court case in which a student went against the principal’s wishes and published something in the school newspaper and consequently received punishment. The Supreme Court sided with the principal’s side… so principals do have the last say in what goes into the article. Think of it this way: as a journalist your boss is the editor in chief (I think?), who’s boss is the teacher in charge of the group, who’s boss is the principal.</p>