About

Our Mission

The Campus Lantern’s mission is to provide an open forum for civic dialogue while adhering to the highest standards of journalistic ethics and Springside Chestnut Hill’s Code of Conduct.

Our Purpose

The purpose of The Campus Lantern is to serve its readership in the following ways:

• Balanced, objective, accurate and relevant school, community, and global news reportage
• Informed opinion writing that encourages open versus closed dialogue
• Ideas-driven feature writing that strives to foster social, political and economic engagement with current events
• Relevant and timely sports coverage
• Informative and inclusive profile writing
• Inclusive representation of the diverse opinions, interests, ideas and experiences of the SCH community

Our Commitment to Freedom of Expression

The Campus Lantern endeavors to promote freedom of expression and open civic discourse, two principles that are fundamental to our democratic society. In line with our country’s ideals and our SCH mission, The Campus Lantern seeks “to inspire unbounded curiosity and independent thought in every one of our students,” Additionally, the newspaper “extends the educational environment well beyond the classroom, nurtures students’ knowledge of themselves and the world, and prepares students to lead lives characterized by thoughtfulness, integrity, and a quest to effect positive change.” In this civic forum, students have the opportunity to practice the school’s core values of courage, integrity, diversity, resilience, and thoughtfulness.

In line with our school mission, opinions that target an individual or group based on identity will not be published. 

Additionally, in accordance with the Pennsylvania Administrative Code of Student Rights and Responsibility, The Campus Lantern will not publish “any material determined by student editors or the student editorial board to be unprotected, that is, material that is libelous, obscene, materially disruptive of the school process, an unwarranted invasion of privacy, a violation of copyright or a promotion of products or services unlawful (illegal) as to minors as defined by state or federal law.”

The Editorial Board is responsible for all of The Campus Lantern’s published content. Final content decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief who works in conjunction with the  faculty advisor.  

Role of the Advisor

As stated in the Upper School Student Handbook, “The role of the advisor in an activity is to help student leadership set goals and outcomes and assist with the organization and execution of meetings. Advisors act as facilitators of student leadership development and seek to help student leaders problem solve and think strategically. The advisor retains authority over student leaders and acts to uphold the integrity of the activity, its membership, and its operations.”

In addition to the responsibilities put forth in the Student Handbook, The Campus Lantern adviser must also follow the Code of Ethics, adapted from the Journalism Education Association Advisors’ Code of Ethics. 

Advisors will:

• Model standards of professional journalistic conduct.
• Empower students to make decisions of style, structure and content by creating a learning atmosphere where students will actively practice critical thinking and decision-making.
• Encourage students to seek points of view and to explore a variety of information sources in their decision-making.
• Emphasize the importance of accuracy, balance and clarity in all aspects of news gathering and reporting.
• Remain informed on press rights and responsibilities across media platforms; be able to provide students with sources of information on legal matters.
• Display professional and personal integrity in situations that might be construed as potential conflicts of interest.
• Model traits of a life-long learner through continuous professional development in media education along with membership and involvement in professional media organizations.
• Champion inclusion so that all students not only see themselves and their ideas represented, but also see themselves as able to contribute to and to lead student-determined media.
• Foster cooperation and open communication with administrators and other stakeholders.
• Encourage journalistically responsible use of social media in schools and educate students, school officials and community to its value. Educate students about the ramifications of its misuse.
• Works collaboratively with the administration to keep the administration informed and to seek advice on legal or ethical matters.
• Hold final say over content decisions.

Journalism Code of Ethics

The Campus Lantern follows a code of ethics that is inline with the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy Code of Conduct. The seven pillars of ethical journalism include:

Accuracy

Integrity and Dignity

Conflict of Interest

Respect

Ownership and Responsibility

Fairness, Equity and Consistency

Justice and Courage

Role of the Administration

The administration works beside the editor-in-chief and faculty adviser to ensure that the newspaper meets the standards for excellence laid out in to the mission, purpose, commitment to freedom of expression and journalism code of ethics outlined above.