By Ryan G. Murphy, Digital Media Editor

RTDNA is, in my mind, an organization heavily dedicated to educating news professionals and journalism students. In recent months we’ve delivered podcasts, an array of original content and the organization’s first-ever webinar – all designed to help our professional members do their jobs better and our student members learn to become adept professionals.

While our professional members are vital to our organization, this blog is not about you. (I promise it’s still important that you read it, though.) The focus today is on the students and a lesson in improper education from the office of Justice Kennedy and the head of a New York school.

Many of you may have read the New York Times article on Tuesday regarding Dalton, a private school in Manhattan that recently hosted Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. According to the Times’ report, Kennedy’s office requested approval of any article run in the school paper about Kennedy’s recent visit to the school to “make sure the quotations attributed to him were accurate.”

The Times reported that Kennedy’s office received the piece and returned it with some minor tweaks. Quotations were tidied up to better reflect Kennedy’s intention when speaking, the Times reported. 

The head of the school, Ellen Stein, defended the school’s action in sending the article saying, “This allows student publications to be correct. I think fact checking is a good thing,” the Times reported.

What’s the lesson here? Should we be angry that Justice Kennedy, a strong supporter of First Amendment rights, appeared to be doing just the opposite? No, I don’t think that’s a good approach. The Times article referenced that the request was likely made from a staffer. That doesn’t make it right, but there’s a bigger, non-political fish to fry here.

The issue here is education. My concern is that Stein’s response to the Kennedy-office review sends the wrong message and displays a basic mistrust of the students – high school seniors, according to the report, who are old enough to select a president and fight in a war. Surely, with the proper guidance the same cohort can accurately report in an article. There is a better way to teach fact checking and reporting accuracy than by delivering a draft to a source. In hindsight, I trust that several of the parties involved have come to realize the error in judgment. Acquiescing to the requests of a source is not the way to promote and improve reporting. I hope in the wake of this situation, the students realize this  and the educators understand that trusting student reporters and providing the proper guidance will produce successful journalists.