Editor-in-chief
This lesson explores the basics of editorial processing and the role of news editors. Students learn about journalistic ethics and standards by analyzing real or mock-up articles before approving them for publication.
Lesson goals
- Critical thinking
- Analytical skills
Activities
Theory (30 minutes) - Teacher-centered
Present the theory.
Aim: students learn about the basic standards and ethical principles in journalism.
Example (15 minutes) - Teacher-centered
Check, edit, and comment on a news article with the entire class as an example.
Aim: teacher helps students apply basic journalistic principles to assessing a news article.
Exercise (25 minutes) - Class divided into smaller groups
Students, now divided into smaller groups, work on the same article. After an allotted time, the class discusses the article (5-10 minutes).
Aim: students practise spotting bad journalistic standards.
Discussion (15 minutes) - Class
The teacher and students discuss the role of the editor-in-chief. Students should reflect on what they found challenging, easy, etc.
Aim: students reflect on the role of the editor-in-chief.
Pedagogical tips and recommendations
- Try to pick examples from local media and/or news stories the students are familiar with, especially if you are working with beginners.
- If you already did the “Journalist for a day” lesson with your students, you can use the articles the students produced for the exercise in this lesson. Try to look for local journalist associations and organizations. These normally exist everywhere and have their own versions of journalist ethics charters. The content is pretty much universal, but it helps to learn about them in the student’s native language.
Theory (30 minutes)
Journalist ethics and standards are rules and norms that govern journalism and separate good journalists from bad journalists. They exist because journalists do an essential job: they provide information to the public and can, therefore do a lot of harm. But a journalist is not alone. In any type of media, there will be an editor, usually even a board of editors, who are responsible for ensuring that all publications of that media follow the proper journalist standards. The main editor, who is superior to all others and, in most jurisdictions, legally responsible for the content the media puts out, is called the editor-in-chief.
What norms and rules does the editor-in-chief have to adhere to? We can look at the Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists for the most basic and condensed version. You can find the file with commentary attached to this lesson.
Example (15 minutes)
Check, edit, and comment on a news article with the entire class as an example.
Exercise (25 minutes)
- The students should be divided into small groups, but the size can vary.
- All the groups work on the same example simultaneously, which is distributed by the teacher. The students have to pretend they are the editor-in-chief and they are looking through an article, highlighting potential problems.
- They can highlight a problem and either decide it should be thrown out, or it could be assessed further, ie. “We would ask the journalist to tell us where some information comes from.”
- Each group should report their findings to the rest of the class.
Teachers should find their source material. These should be articles in the language of instructions, preferably (especially for younger students) with more obvious defects. Articles written by students work as well. Examples include
- https://www.foxnews.com/media/rachel-levine-ripped-demanding-censorship-misinformation-gender-affirming-care-kids
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11516651/Royals-hit-Harry-Meghans-Netflix-series.html
- https://nova24tv.eu/featured/the-lies-that-the-prime-minister-told-at-the-celebration-of-independence-and-unity-day-are-unbelievable/