Frederick Lantern Editorial Policy

Revised August 10, 2025

The Frederick Lantern in the student news website of Frederick High School in Frederick, CO, which is a member of the St. Vrain Valley School District.

The purpose of the Lantern is to…

share with Frederick students stories about what they want to and should know,

inform the Tri-town community about what’s going on at Frederick High School,

and provide a strong foundation for the next generation of journalists.

To accomplish this, The Lantern enlists a staff of student writers and editors supervised by a Frederick High teacher in the role of faculty adviser. The following policies outline the roles and responsibility of the student staff and faculty adviser as well as the publishing guidelines for The Frederick Lantern.

SECTION I: STUDENT STAFF

A majority of published stories, whether written or multimedia, must be created by the student staff (though the Lantern is free to also publish work by Frederick staff, former students, and parents of current students–see section 5).

Student editors are responsible for determining the story content of The Lantern and what work is shared with the public.

Members of The Lantern’s student staff have the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press within reasonable restrictions (these are outlined in section 4). This right is guaranteed to students by the Colorado Student Free Expression Law (CRS 22-1-120) and SVVSD Board Policy JICEA-R.

SECTION II: FACULTY ADVISER AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION

The Lantern is required to have a Frederick High faculty adviser who is responsible for…

supervising the overall production of The Lantern (including setting deadlines and site design),
managing the Lantern’s financials,
ensuring adherence to this editorial policy,
communicating story concerns with school administration
determining what students may join The Lantern and which students may be editors,
and dismissing student staff for cause.

The student editors, not the faculty adviser, determines what stories are published. In their role as a teacher, the staff adviser may require the writers cover specific topics or writing structures as a learning exercise, but students editors must ultimately approve the publication of any such articles.

As students drive the publishing decisions, no expression made by students in their exercise of freedom of speech or freedom of the press in The Lantern can be deemed to be an expression of school policy, and no St. Vrain employee, parent or legal guardian, or the district at large can be held liable in any civil or criminal action for any expression published by students (CRS 22-1-120.7).

SECTION III: LIMITATIONS TO FREE EXPRESSION

While the faculty adviser or school administration may provide constructive criticism of student work created for The Lantern, that work cannot be censored or prevented from publishing by school adults unless…

it is obscene in nature (including profane language);
it is discriminatory against any protected group or class as defined by Colorado state law;
its claims are libelous, defamatory, or untrue;
the work violates copyright;
the work violates privacy laws (including FERPA);
it encourages or threatens violence;
it promotes illegal activity (including gang activity and underage drug use);
or its publication would lead to a substantial disruption to the orderly operation of Frederick High School.

SECTION IV: STORY AUTHORSHIP

Bylines must accompany all published content. Bylines may contain the name of up to 10 contributors; thus, anyone who contributes 10% or more of the story’s content must be credited in the byline.

If an editor rewrites 10% or more of a story, they also receive a byline credit. If they rewrite more than 50% of the article, the editor takes top byline credit.

Stories published in The Lantern must be original and created by humans. As per the recommendations by the Poynter Institute, authors and editors at The Lantern may not use generative AI to research, write, or “punch up” any story content unless the story is about AI tools and is providing an example of the technology.

However, use of generative AI is acceptable when used…

to generate ideas for stories
to generate a vague outline for written stories
to generate ideas for interview questions
to generate ideas for headlines and decks
to edit written stories for grammar and usage (though AI may not be used for fact checking)
to generate a posting schedule for stories
to generate social media posts promoting an story
to analyze The Lantern site for readership trends and gaps in coverage

Frederick Journalism holds the copyright for all original content published in The Lantern, whether that work was created by the Lantern staff or submitted for inclusion by a reader. These stories may not be reproduced elsewhere by any electronic or physical means without the prior permission of the faculty adviser.

Individual authors and contributors to The Lantern have some limited rights to their stories. While they have the right to share or reprint their work for personal portfolios and websites, their work may not be published to another journalistic platform without the prior permission of the faculty adviser.

Those who contribute their writing, media, or quotes to The Lantern may not be given and should not expect any compensation for that work beyond academic credit toward a Frederick High School class or extracurricular group.

Anyone who disputes the original authorship of a story should contact the faculty adviser. They will investigate all claims of plagiarism, copyright violation, privacy violation, intellectual theft, and fabrication. If such claims are valid, the faculty adviser will pull the story from publication and reprimand the Lantern staff member, with consequence up to and including dismissal from The Lantern staff and payment of legal fees and fines.

SECTION V: STORY COVERAGE

The Frederick Lantern publishes new stories between Labor Day and Memorial Day each year and takes a hiatus every summer.

The majority of stories published by The Lantern must be original and generated by the Lantern’s student staff. The Lantern may also publish work by other Frederick students, Frederick High faculty, the parents of current students, and former Frederick students.

The Lantern requires an original creator’s permission to publish in writing to share work by someone outside The Lantern staff. If the work is sent directly to The Lantern with the intent of publication, that act of submission constitutes permission.

Through its published stories, The Lantern aims to represent the entire student population by including a diversity of perspectives across its output. The faculty adviser may step in if the student editors don’t ensure even coverage across diverse groups.

That being said, it is impossible to cover every event that happens in any given week. If an activity sponsor wants coverage of an event, it is up to that sponsor to make The Lantern staff aware of the event. Even so, the student editors may choose not to cover an event based on a lack of resources (e.g., three events happening on the same night) or due to a belief that the story will not engage or would upset our readers (e.g., a sports event where our team lost in a shutout).

SECTION VI: STORY ACCURACY AND BIASES

All published stories should be be accurate, true, and impartial. To this end, all published stories require direct interviews with sources or links to informational sources used. Even reviews and opinions should anchor the writer’s personal views in a rationale based on facts.

Source links must be present at the time of publishing. Given that the internet is not permanent, older articles may have broken links to sources removed.

Writers may only use anonymous sources if the writer can prove to the editor-in-chief that the informational source is credible and would suffer a significant risk to their safety, reputation, or school standing were their identity to be known by the general student public.

If the editor-in-chief feels that anonymity is warranted, they may allow an anonymous source to be published. For legal reasons, the story’s author should keep all notes and recordings with the source.

Additionally, while the editor-in-chief MUST be told the identity of the source, it is prudent that the source’s identity remain secret to other staff, including the faculty adviser.

While writers may not alter or present interview quotes in a way contrary to their original context, the Lantern reserves the right to censor profanities and edit text to follow grammatical conventions and journalistic style.

Opinions and editorials must be clearly labeled as such.

As political changes and events affect Frederick students, The Lantern would be remiss to not cover local and national political matters. While opinion pieces may contain political partiality, The Lantern does not endorse any party or candidate for any office.

Student authors should prevent the perception of personal bias by not covering stories involving themselves. For example, a football player should not write a story on the football game, and the lead role shouldn’t review the school play.

While the Lantern ensures its authors set aside their personal biases, The Lantern has a journalistic agenda.

As Frederick High’s news website, The Lantern adheres to the school’s mission of promoting student well-being and encouraging healthy physical, social, academic, and emotional behaviors. The Lantern may print stories that question how well the school and SVVSD fosters these behaviors, but The Lantern will never publish anything that goes against this central school mission.

The Lantern is also committed to promoting good journalism and will only present perspectives grounded in verifiable, reality-based truth. Not every argument has two sides (e.g., an opinion article about how the Earth is flat is not reality based), and The Lantern refuses to provide a platform for nonsense.

SECTION VII: STORY MEDIA

Media created by the Lantern staff are for the exclusive use of the The Lantern unless the faculty adviser or editor-in-chief gives written permission. This includes:

photographs taken with The Lantern’s cameras
drawings, art, and graphics created for Lantern stories or for its web design
video footage shot for a Lantern story
audio recorded for use in a broadcast or podcast

Lantern staff may edit media that does not meet standards of quality for inclusion (size, length, shape, focus, brightness, colorization, etc.) so long as that editing does not alter the original context.

Other than original photographs, artwork, and recordings, the only other media that may be published by The Lantern are…

official logos, including those of FHS and SVVSD
officially released media that are part of a press package (including movie posters and trailers)
media in the public domain or Creative Commons
media used with specific written permission from the original creator on file with the faculty adviser
live embedded social media posts (screenshots require specific written permission)

The inclusion of any other media in a Lantern story is forbidden. If The Lantern receives a takedown notice for an unlicensed image violation, the original author of the story will be responsible for taking down the image and paying any incurring fines.

All media must contain a “Photo by” or “Art by” or “Video by” credit.

If the media is not original, its source must follow the credit after a backslash (e.g., Photo by Brandon Coon/Flickr). For human-interest pieces, a “Courtesy of” credit for provided media is acceptable.

AI tools may be used to assist staff in taking photos or video, but AI-generated photorealistic images, audio, or video may never be published.

AI tools may be used to create the base elements of an infographic or illustration, but these base elements must be arranged and edited by a human if the image is to be published as part of a Lantern story.

If a parent or guardian has completed a request with the school for their child to not be photographed prior to publication, their child will not appear in any media nor will be interviewed for The Lantern. It is up to the school administration to make the Lantern’s faculty adviser aware of these students.

SECTION VIII: ERRORS

The Lantern staff is intent on checking, editing, and proofreading for all mistakes and tries to guard against carelessness, bias, and distortion by emphasis or omission. However, mistakes may appear due to human error. The staff apologizes for any such occurrences.

For factual errors, The Lantern will provide an article correction with the date and manner of the correction.

For grammatical errors like misspellings, The Lantern may or may not choose to include a correction.

No correction will run for formatting or linking errors.

Since the Lantern is a historical record, only stories and media that violate the editorial policy may be removed from publication.

SECTION IX: ADVERTISING

The Lantern may choose to sell advertisement space on its site to local businesses. The faculty adviser will develop the legal paperwork and price structure for ads, and the student staff is responsible for finding local businesses interested in buying ad space.

Ad space may be purchased by clients on a first-come, first-reserved basis. The Lantern staff will not show favoritism to any client when it comes to advertising. However, the faculty adviser and school admin must approve all advertisers and may reject a businesses for any reason.

The Lantern does not run personal or classified ads.

Business with products or services that are illegal for minors to purchase or sell products that may harm student well-being may not advertise with The Lantern.

Ad space will run on the site homepage and category pages. Ads will also run on story pages by default but will not run on stories with sensitive content–this includes reviews for R-rated films and TV-MA series.

The Lantern will not run an ad without a signature on an advertising contract by the client–this contract must contain terms of payment, content, size, and publishing dates.

Clients may either supply ad art to The Lantern or elect for student staff members to create the ad for an additional fee. All student-created ads must provide an ad proof to the client and get the client’s signature on that proof before the ad may run.

If the client violates the contract or misses a payment, their ad will be pulled and they will not be refunded. If an ad runs with errors, the adviser may offer the client a partial refund of no more than 40% or extend the range of publishing dates.

Acceptance of an advertising client does not constitute an endorsement by The Lantern, Frederick High School, the St. Vrain Valley School District, or any individual staff member of the Lantern, FHS, or SVVSD.

SECTION X: OBITUARIES AND DEATH

Should a Frederick student, staff member, or notable alumnus die, The Lantern will defer to the wishes of the decedent’s family on how to cover the loss to our school community. Should they desire an obituary, one will be published within ten days of the request.

The obituary will be restricted to the circumstances regarding the death, the contributions they made to the school community, and quotes from survivors about how they will miss that person.

The obituary must be approved by both the decedent’s family and the school administration before it runs, and specific details (like cause of death) may be withheld if requested by either party.

A specific student’s death may not be used in any non-obituary news coverage: for example, a student who dies in a drunk driving accident cannot be mentioned by name in a Lantern story decrying teen drunk driving.

However, Lantern stories can refer to these events in vague terms that respect student privacy (e.g., “We have lost students to drunk driving accidents recently”).

The exception to this is if the death occurred on school grounds, as a death on campus demands investigation into the safety of the students and ways the school will prevent future tragedy.