Stevenson High School is throwing a fight against the media, including its own.
After ending up on Friday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune for allegedly censoring a controversial issue of the school’s paper The Statesman, school officials are now saying the censorship charges are “false.”
“The Statesman’s edition originally scheduled to run on Friday was delayed because its faculty advisors determined that an article featuring anonymous sources discussing alleged illegal activity was not fit for print,” the Lincolnshire school explained in a statement.
The story was about National Honor Society students and freshman mentors admitting to drinking and smoking, and was set to appear on the weekly’s front page, according to the Daily Herald.
“Today’s issue was censored,” the paper's managing editor Evan Ribot told the Herald, adding that stories about shoplifting and teen pregnancy were also considered inappropriate and discarded.
On Wednesday, the paper’s staff was told to not run the story until “appropriate revisions” were made.
The school defended it's decision because it does not "does not encourage the use of anonymous sources in its student newspaper" and that it's bound by the "principle of in loco parentis -- acting in the place of the parent."
Instead of postponing the article’s publication, students decided the paper should be published with a blank front page, with only a note explaining the reason for the missing article.
A Monday meeting has been scheduled between the school’s administration and students working at the paper.
“We have to discuss our options,” Ribot told the Herald. “I certainly don’t want to water down the stories.”
The Statesman had already been in the spotlight earlier this year, when 3,400 copies of a February issue mostly dedicated to teen “hook ups” disappeared.
