DVD To Assist In First Ammendment Education

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(MUNCIE) - Ball State University’s journalism school has created a DVD which aims to educate school administrators about first amendment law.

Warren Watson is the director of the school's "J Ideas" program and a co-creator of the disc. He says principals often do not know how the first amendment is applied and sometimes over-step their bounds.

While Watson contends principals have a responsibility to keep journalists on-task and not writing stories for the sole purpose of causing controversy, he says the DVD will help them learn how and when to step in. He says the DVD is not done in a preachy manner, but rather uses discussion between students and staff at several high schools.

Watson says he'd like to prevent conflicts like one at Woodland High School near Fort Wayne where an administrator shelved an editorial asking for tolerance of homosexuals.

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