High School Censorship

Man, what's up with the state of things in this country? People are shocked with the king of Nepal censoring news, but we're doing the exact same thing.

This is from the LA Times:

"Censorship of high school papers and disciplining of their editors and reporters are at an all-time high, triggered by a growing disdain for the media in general and by increased pressure on school administrators to "present the right image to the community" in response to mounting budget cuts and federal- and state-mandated educational standards, says Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va.

The most recent manifestation of the crackdown on school papers came in Fullerton last week when officials at Troy High School placed Ann Long on a leave of absence from her job as co-editor in chief of the Oracle.

Long's "crime" was writing and publishing a story about two bisexual students and one gay student in what she called "an attempt to raise awareness on campus that people with different sexualities go through more emotional stress than the average teenager."

Click here for the full story.

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/cl-ca-shaw6feb06,1,6136382.column?coll=la-news-columns&ctrack=1&cset=true

-Jean Chen