Stevenson students produce first paper with extra supervision

Stevenson High School's award-winning student newspaper came out Friday for the first time since additional scrutiny was assigned to the publication because of what administrators said was a pattern of errors and unbalanced reporting.

Lincolnshire-based Stevenson District 125 officials ordered more oversight of the Statesman after what they said were the most recent reporting problems in a Jan. 30 story about teenagers preferring casual sexual "hookups" to traditional dating.

District 125 spokesman Jim Conrey said officials have received plenty of feedback from parents since the decision to have communication arts director David Noskin examine the Statesman and give final approval before it's published.

"Some parents support us," Conrey said Friday. "Some parents are against us."

Problems cited by the administration with the Statesman's hooking-up story included a failure to provide opposing viewpoints from students who prefer traditional dating to casual sex. Officials said the Statesman's accuracy problems date to April 2008.

In Friday's edition, the paper's staff explained how the Jan. 30 story was an effort to localize a New York Times Op-Ed piece called "The Demise of Dating." The Statesman also ran six letters to the editor on the administration's order for more oversight of the paper or the hooking-up topic.

Stevenson junior Samuel Atticus Perl wrote he was outraged by the administration's decision and that the high school journalists shouldn't give up. He said officials don't like the paper's willingness to tackle controversial topics.

"You must not let the policies of the Stevenson administration censor you into oblivion," Perl wrote. "What you are doing for the school is immeasurably important."

But sophomore Cole Deloye wrote in his letter that while he supports free speech and articles about delicate issues, the Statesman has crossed the line by publishing offensive and unnecessary stories.

"From the 'What Asian are you? to the latest disaster 'Hooking up,' the school newspaper has turned from a fun and educational newspaper into a TMZ-like publication," Deloye wrote.

Officials said students receive grades in journalism classes and must learn to be accurate. Teacher Barbara Thill, who is the Statesman's sponsor and previously had the final word before it was printed, declined to comment Friday.

Randy Swikle, Illinois director of the Journalism Education Association, has said Stevenson is wrongly on a path to censoring a paper that's received national honors. He contends it's a lack of respect for student journalists to have administrative review.

Copies of the Statesman were handed to students as they entered the school Friday. Any of the 3,400 free papers not distributed are left in open bins in the school.

All 3,400 of the Jan. 30 papers with the hooking-up story were distributed. Conrey said Stevenson officials are still contending with false accusations they removed leftover papers.

Stevenson's journalism program garnered multiple awards from the Northern Illinois Scholastic Press Association in April 2008. In-depth reporting and editorial writing were among the awards Stevenson received.