Skinny dipping issue offers chance to teach

The “Most Likely to Skinny Dip” award presented in the Portales High School yearbook a few weeks ago was controversial only in extreme circles. Anyone worried about our children’s morality being reflected in those pages needs a reality check. And a hobby.

But the incident has raised an issue dear to our hearts, one that goes to freedom’s core.

The students had every right to publish photos of two PHS seniors posing as if nude behind a tree. The First Amendment gives them that right.

The question is whether they should have published the pictures. Just because you have the right to shock your parents and the community funding your project, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

School Superintendent Johnnie Cain said administrators had no idea the photos were in the yearbook until it arrived from the publisher last month, too late to address. He vowed changes would be made before next year.

“We are going to add an extra layer of editorial review to make sure this does not happen again,” he said.

Yes, we caught the figurative humor in those words. And whether he meant to be funny or just say that more adults would be involved next time, we agree.

But here’s the thing: Student publications are not supposed to be reflections of school staff, administrators or elected board members. They’re supposed to reflect student life, through student eyes.

So we’re concerned when Cain says things like, “We want the yearbook to represent the positive things about the school year,” which is what he told a reporter who asked about policy changes.

Student yearbooks, like student newspapers, should not be public relations tools for school administrators.

We think they should be learning opportunities for students who will be communicating with others for the rest of their lives.

Of course instructors should be leading the way here, just as they do in math class or the science lab.

A skilled professional should be directing the student journalists, teaching about the enormous responsibility that goes with the right to free speech, teaching that “facts” can be misleading when taken out of context, weighing an individual’s right to privacy against the public’s right to know, and a hundred other concepts that go beyond good journalism, resulting in thoughtful leadership and a better community.

Portales isn’t the first student publication to present content that annoyed parents and administrators. More than 150 Clovis residents attended a school board meeting in 2008, most of them there to complain that student journalists included gay couples in their section on relationships. That, too, led to more oversight by administrators prior to publication of the school annual.

More oversight is fine, but responsible oversight doesn’t concern itself with “Is it positive?” It asks questions like, “Are private relationships news?” or “Is the student body really concerned with who’s most likely to go skinny dipping?”

We’re glad to see Portales school officials are taking an interest in what their student journalists are doing in class. Let’s hope they take this opportunity under the spotlight to teach, not sensor.

Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Clovis Media Inc. editorial board, which includes Editor David Stevens and Publisher Robert Arrowsmith.