When new advisors and staff get ready to start a yearbook, few turn their thoughts to right and wrong, legal, and illegal, what to print and what not to print. It’s more about “Do we have pictures of this?” or “Does anyone know anyone who did something cool for summer vacation?” Along with these questions there is an excellent opportunity to discuss appropriateness, ethics, and responsibility. Students should think about all the pros and cons and whether anyone is hurt unnecessarily, while covering the school year.

Publishing The Truth

A yearbook is oriented towards feature coverage and not published daily or monthly as many student newspapers are, yet it is still important for it to be a faithful, trustworthy accounting of the history of the school year. In fact, since a yearbook cannot print retractions or corrections in the same manner as a newspaper can, it is even more important for it to be factually accurate.

Masking The Truth

At times, it is tempting to leave out some aspects of the year because the staff is afraid of “making someone look bad.” For instance, when the girls’ basketball team loses every game, the sports editor may want to leave out the score box for that spread even though the scores are included on other sports spreads. Instead of trying to cover up the truth, a more compelling and even compassionate way to cover the team would be in writing a story or interviewing the athletes for a quote collection in which they talk about how they kept motivating each other through such a tough season. Regardless, keep the scoreboard. A more slippery and common problem for yearbook staffers in truth-telling is in resisting the temptation to alter a photograph’s content.

Be sure to consult with your school administrators if you have any doubts about including something. Meet with them at the beginning to get a clear understanding of what they want out of the book. Once printed it is here for life.

Personal Involvement

Helping students and staff heal from the death of a fellow student or co-worker is difficult. Every person reacts in a different way, and it is important to be respectful of everyone at such times, not favoring one group over another.

Some schools handle these kinds of situations by honoring the individual with a ¼-page or ½-page “in memory of …” photo. It includes only the name, year of birth and death as well as photos of the individual supplied by the family. It could be placed in front of the advertising/index section or at the conclusion of the portrait section; being mindful that it is not adjacent to other coverage that would be insensitive. If multiple individuals pass away during the year, it is important to allocate the same amount of space for both as well as maintaining a standard within those pages (same font, same font size, same number of pictures, etc.) Some schools choose not to ever print their own memorial pages, but rather allow friends and/or family to purchase a student page in the advertising section to memorialize their friend. The most important approach is to be sensitively realistic that this could happen at some point and to be prepared with a plan when it does.

Advertising Policy

Do not allow advertisers to dictate coverage decisions. For instance, it is not appropriate that a local used car dealership purchase an advertisement in return for inclusion in a story in the student life section on students and how they acquire their first cars. Even if the suggestion is not overt, it is not ethical. That is not to say you cannot do the story but rather it would not feature the advertiser. It is also not ethical to feature an image of a homecoming parade that focuses closely on signage promoting a local car dealer on a convertible transporting a queen candidate. Conversely, if someone who is an advertiser does something of major importance for the school – funds an endowment, builds a new theatre – it would be appropriate and indeed newsworthy to cover in the yearbook. Including a statement in the yearbook’s code of ethics and advertising policies could directly address such circumstances by stating that the staff does not solicit or accept coverage ideas from advertisers, nor does it feature advertisers in coverage other than in the advertising section.

To ensure that publishing guidelines are followed as much as possible, every yearbook staff should discuss, agree upon, write and publish a policy that covers its right of free expression and the way all staff members will conduct themselves in an ethical fashion. It may include the following topics:

• References to national, state, municipal and school district policies governing the book
• Advertising policies
• Obituary policies
• Book sales policies
• Senior portrait policies
• Photography policies
• Journalistic integrity policies

Copyright

Every high school student should be familiar with the concept of plagiarism. School handbooks and class assignments are clear on the definitions and the repercussions, but when it comes to the yearbook, they often neglect to remember that what may appear to be plagiarism can become an issue of the law: copyright law.

Yearbook classes strive to produce a book that is accepted and popular. It must reflect what is relevant to the students today. As class advisors, the first place we tell the class to seek inspiration for their theme or concept is within popular culture.

Before choosing a theme or concept based on a popular idea, however, it is vital that copyright law is fully understood by the class. Copyright law was established to protect the rights of the author and creators of any original artwork, literary work, dramatic work, advertising design and photographs. It also protects the rights to reproduce cartoon characters, music lyrics and scores.

For a yearbook class, it is quite simple to avoid problems. The class should acknowledge that any work that has been created by someone else and put in a fixed form cannot be used without the permission of the creator. Only the creator or the owner of the rights or licenses can grant permission.

Appearing in the public domain, such as the Internet, does not mean that the work is now available for use. It only means that the person or company using the work has sought and received permission. The class must follow the same path and secure permission before including the work in their yearbook.