Topic > Herriman High School story goes national

Freedom of speech is a principle that upholds the freedom of an individual or community to express their opinions and ideas without fear of reprisal, censorship, or punishment. For a school newspaper this right felt like it had been taken away. On January 18, 2018, one of Herriman High School's students, reporter and editor, Conor Spahr, published a story for the school newspaper The Telegraph that a former Herriman High School teacher was being investigated for misconduct. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Fox 13 confirmed that the Unified Police Department was investigating the alleged misconduct of Ryan White, who terminated his job as a teacher at Herriman High School in November last year. White allegedly texted a 17-year-old student during the course of a school year and then after the student graduated. Some of the text messages the student received were allegedly inappropriate. In publishing Spahr's article, managing editor Max Gordon and his staff may have broken the school's prior review policy. There is disagreement over when prior review applies at The Telegraph. Students said they didn't break it because they met and incorporated Vice Principal Richard Price's changes and that online stories don't need to be approved. Max Gordon, editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, said: "We want to actually do our job as a publication and write stories that people will care about." Please note: this is just an example. Get a customized document from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Since the school administration forced the closure of the newspaper website, the staff of The Telegraph created a new website called The Telegram that is out of reach of school administrators. Gabriel Greschler, a reporter for the Student Press Law Center, said that “they also wrote an open letter on Wednesday asking the administration to reinstate the article on The Telegraph website and to allow the censored article to be published in print. Their petition to "end censorship of The Herriman High Telegraph" had 473 signatures as of January 24. Not only local newspapers got wind of it, but also some national newspapers. It has had great success, not only in local newspapers but also in national ones such as the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, KSL, The Sal Lake Tribune and even Fox 13 News.