Oct. 28, 2024
Our past three editions
Oct. 21, 2024 Girl Scout dues • IV fluids • Liam Payne
Oct. 7, 2024 Local elections • Food waste • Fat Bear Week
Sept. 30, 2024 Tropical storm Helene • Plastic bags • Gun safety
THE LEAD
Los Angeles Times, Washington Post staff members resign after decisions to not endorse presidential candidate
Discuss news organization’s place in political endorsements
For the first time since 2008, the Los Angeles Times will not be endorsing a candidate for president — and the paper is losing subscribers and staff because of it.
The billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board’s planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month. The editorials editor, Mariel Garza, resigned because of the decision on Wednesday, the Columbia Journalism Review reported. Two editorial board members also told Semafor they were leaving the paper this week.
In Garza’s resignation letter, published in full by the Columbia Journalism Review, she points to the Trump campaign’s use of the paper’s decision to discredit the Harris campaign. The lack of endorsement “undermines the integrity of the editorial board,” Garza wrote.
“In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity,” she wrote. “I’m standing up by stepping down from the editorial board. Please accept this as my formal resignation, effective immediately.”
The Washington Post also announced it will not be endorsing a candidate for the first time since the 1980s, a controversial choice among Post staff that has been criticized by former editor Martin Baron, NPR reported.
What you can do —
News organizations have been endorsing presidential candidates since at least 1860, when the New York Times endorsed former president Abraham Lincoln, FiveThirtyEight reported. In the intensely political world we live in now, some papers have moved away from the practice — in 2022 papers controlled by Alden Global Capital said they would stop endorsing presidential candidates. Some political journalists stand by this decision NiemanLab reported in 2022, saying the divide between a paper’s editorial and news staff isn’t always clear to readers, and an endorsement can cause confusion.
At the same time, major players in the United States media ecosystem still throw their hats in the ring every election cycle. The New York Times, Boston Globe, the Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Scientific American and many others have endorsed candidates this election. Even some college papers, including the Cornell Daily Sun, have endorsed candidates.
The election is less than two weeks away, so the time for publications to endorse candidates has largely passed, but this could be the start of an interesting staff discussion or editorial. Ask your staff what they think about news organizations making political endorsements — do they think it’s worth it? Do they think it compromises the news goals of journalism? Do they pay attention to endorsements? It is also a good time to discuss, or create, your own staff guideline about political endorsements.
Noteworthy
Father creates video game to raise fentanyl awareness after son’s death
Share emergency response information, explore nontraditional education options
In 2021, Kamal Bherwani received a call no parent wants. His son, Ethan Bherwani, was unconscious in the emergency room during a trip to Mohegan Sun, a casino in Connecticut. Ethan Behrwani died of fentanyl poisoning after collapsing in the casino. CBS News reported that he laid on the ground for 11 minutes without help.
The leading treatment for a fentanyl overdose is a drug called Narcan, or naloxone. If given quickly, naloxone binds to opioid receptors and blocks the effects of opioid drugs like fentanyl. The casino keeps Narcan on hand, CBS reported, but protocol dictates it is not used if the cause of a person’s collapse is unknown.
In the wake of his son’s death, Kamal Bherwani produced a video game, called “Johanna’s Vision” that raises awareness about fentanyl and Narcan use. The video game launched in August.
What you can do —
Overdose deaths in the United States have been steadily rising for years and there is always more that can be done to help. One potential coverage route is a story detailing signs of an opioid overdose as well as how to administer Narcan. There may be community groups that focus on raising awareness and run trainings that your coverage could highlight. Also, you could include where to get narcan at school
Using the video game as a hook, you also could cover the use of nontraditional education methods to address heavy topics. There is research into how gamifying topics can enhance learning effectiveness. Talk to experts about the psychology behind this as well as students or teachers who have tried educational games.
What’s viral
Research suggests teens tired of romance, sex in movies, television shows
Look into student attitudes, pursue data visualizations
Teens are looking for stories built around friendship and platonic relationships in the media they consume, new research from the University of California, Los Angeles found. The annual Teens and Screens report found that 62.4% of 14 to 24 year olds don’t think sex and sexual content aren’t needed to advance the plot, up from 47.5% last year.
Survey participants are also showing an increased interest in asexual and/or aromatic characters, with 46% saying they want to see more.
The survey covers a wide range of topics, from the popularity of gaming to portrayals of social media on screen to entertainment preferences.
What you can do —
Whether it’s a reaction story with students at your school or data visualization using the information from the report, there are multiple entry points to coverage with this study.
One way to cover it would be to identify key findings and ask students about them. Do they agree? What entertainment media trends do they want to see?
It is also a great opportunity to try out some data visualization. Few studies are as relevant and accessible to high school students as this one. The study’s results are available online and are displayed in a non-intimidating format. Take some time to dig into the results and then figure out how to display them for your audience.
The questions the survey asked could also be starting points for individual stories. Because the content is widely varied, reading the report may prompt questions about social media, preferred genres, gaming and more.
IT’S AN HONOR
New feature
If you haven’t accessed our members-only area, we encourage you to do so. While we hope to expand this feature, you can find bell ringers, lesson plans and a gallery of our News Media Evaluation Gallup Award winners.
To access, please visit our new member login page. Your credentials are in an email from [email protected]. Please check your spam folder and if you still don’t see it, reach out to us at [email protected] and we will help you troubleshoot!
When you log in, please accept cookies via the popup on the bottom of the page. This will limit the number of times you have to login!
Members-only area highlight
See our bell ringer about the rule of thirds in photography
This bell ringer highlights and explains the rule of thirds, which is a basic photo composition technique.
This new offering is part of Quill and Scroll’s new members-only area. In addition to bell ringers, we also have lesson plans and a library of the past year’s Gallup Award winners.
We will be highlighting something from this members-only area in each Weekly Scroll. If your login information isn’t working for some reason, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Your login information was sent to you in an email a few weeks ago.
It’s always membership season
Don’t forget you can nominate members year round
If you’ve thought about having a more active Quill and Scroll chapter, we suggest initiating members in the fall. (And don’t worry, if you’re worried that having chapter activities will just add another to do time to the list, we have several suggested chapter activities in “lesson plan” format so students can lead these!) While you’re ordering, don’t forget to include any cords and other Quill and Scroll materials and memorabilia.
We haven’t changed the ordering process from last year. For those wanting to ditch the paper version, you just need to select the form based on how you would like to pay. We have one version for credit card and another version for check or purchase order. (We’ve added buttons for ease of finding these.) As usual, credit card payments are charged $4.49 per order for processing.
Writing, Visual, Multimedia contest open
Due date is Feb. 5
The entry form is live and we are accepting submissions. Be aware, we have added a few categories and changed a few items and descriptions. The cost is $8 for all entry types and you may submit live links. If you would rather make a PDF of the submission, you may still do this as well. Please make sure to allow anyone with the link to view. Remember, we don’t accept a Google document as an entry. We only accept published work.
Please make a note — all entries and payments will be due Feb. 5.
Make sure to include either your credit card payments or check or purchase order when you enter. The link provided on the site will take you directly to the credit card or check/purchase order page for the order. The WVM category payment option is at the bottom of the page.
Please reach out if you have any questions.
National High School Journalism Convention travels to Philadelphia
This fall the nation’s largest gathering of high school journalists, advisers and journalism teachers will be held Nov. 7-10 at the Philadelphia Marriott. Quill and Scroll will be there, so please stop by our table and say hi.
No Weekly Scroll
We will pause the Weekly Scroll during the weeks of Nov. 4 and Nov. 11 when we travel to our college and high school conventions, respectively.
Thank you for understanding.
Just a thought
A few weeks ago, my adviser sent me one of those auto-generated photo memory videos our photo libraries feed us every once and a while. It was full of pictures from a guest speaker my high school newspaper brought in to give us the rundown on his job at the Star Tribune, the major newspaper in Minneapolis.
The photos sent me down memory lane and served as a reminder of the impact Quill and Scroll had on my high school experience. My name is Marta Hill and I was editor-in-chief of my high school paper, the Echo, my junior and senior years. I also was a part of the team behind our Quill and Scroll chapter. (Now I work for Quill and Scroll and NSPA, so clearly it didn’t scare me away in high school.)
Our Quill and Scroll chapter was reasonably active, but it was never an added stressor for my adviser or the student leaders. We had a lowkey induction because that’s what worked for us, we had regular meetings with members and ran special programming several times a year.
That said, it would have been fine if we had taken a completely different approach. We make no judgment on how you should be running your chapter, but we do want to help you make the most out of the experience.
We have created a set of resources for you to use with your chapter. We have suggested chapter activities and, in our new members-only area, lesson plans, bellringers and a Gallup Award winner library you can use.
Some of my favorite Quill and Scroll activities included guest speakers, silly staff bonding activities like coloring competitions and discussions about current topics in journalism.
Those stand-out experiences range widely in terms of workload on chapter leaders. Bringing in outside speakers can take some advance planning, but I’ve found that working journalists are often thrilled to talk with student media. Things like coloring competitions or staff game days just require a few materials. Discussions about journalism just take a few well-thought out questions to get the conversation flowing.
Whatever works for you and your Quill and Scroll chapter works for us. If there are activities or lesson plans you want to see on our website, shoot us an email at [email protected] — we are always looking to expand our offerings.
I am now in journalism grad school, after getting my undergraduate degree in journalism. Though it’s been 5 or 6 years since that guest speaker came to our meeting, I am still in contact with him occasionally. He has helped me navigate journalism internships and graciously answered my questions as I move into my career. That connection is entirely due to Quill and Scroll, and I’m forever grateful for it.
— Marta Hill
