Student Newsroom

A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation on a high-school editor-in-chief running her student newspaper and website through one contentious month: planning the story with a claims list and a conflict check, treating an anonymous tip as a reason to report rather than to publish, putting sources on the record with a fair chance to reply, answering the principal's request to approve the story under Hazelwood School District v.

Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S.

260 (1988), and Illinois' Speech Rights of Student Journalists Act (105 ILCS 80/10), printing only what is verified about a named adult (105 ILCS 80/15(1)), never identifying a minor victim (105 ILCS 80/15(2)), correcting an error in the open and moderating the comments, for high-school Career and Technical Education in journalism and digital media, with JEA-aligned journalism standards named as a hook.

Nkechi Ward, 17, is the fictional editor-in-chief of The Heron Prairie Crier at the fictional Heron Prairie High School in Bloomington, Illinois, in October 2027.

Round by round you decide how the newsroom takes on the story and handles the tip, who is in the story and how to answer the principal, what the story says about the coach and the 15-year-old victim, and how to handle a correction and the comments; at each decision point the story's record at the end of the month is projected again with the decisions taken so far.

Each round is scored on the claims verified and accurate, the rework hours, the error rate, the standards review and the readers' trust, with open violations shown alongside; publishing an unverified accusation against a named person, or identifying a minor victim, caps the score. English with Spanish.

An introductory simulation that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, designed for undergraduate courses. It also works in vocational and high-school programmes and in onboarding sessions.