Join the Discussion: Protocol for Free & Responsible Student News Media

On February 8-9, 2010, the McCormick Freedom Project and the Illinois Press Foundation will convene a group of crucial stakeholders from across the state and country with the goal of creating a protocol that will serve as a national model for scholastic journalism. The conference will bring together more than 50 representatives from local and national organizations specializing in the First Amendment, scholastic journalism, and school governance, including students, teachers and principals, who are the first to encounter these often tense situations inherent to scholastic journalism, along with superintendents, school board members, and other affected parties.

The Freedom Project hopes that you will join in the discussion through the Twitter hash tag #studentnewsmedia and through the Ning group on the Five Freedoms Network.

Freedom Project and Journalism Program staff will be tweeting and posting some questions this week to get the discussion going and will live tweet periodically from the conference. Some of the discussion posts and tweets may become part of the final conference report.

Look for Journalism Program staff who will be moderating discussions. Director Clark Bell will give remarks at Monday's dinner.

Thanks and we hope to hear from you on the Web or see you there!