Student Journalists and Access: What You Can (and Can’t) Do to Gather News

Student reporters can sometimes face closed doors. From interviews to student government meetings, access rules can be confusing. This post reviews some basics about student journalists’ rights to gather news, viewed through the lens of a specific example from a private Quaker school.

Photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash.

By Diana Day

Student government meetings at my private Quaker school take place within the context of Meeting for Worship and are called Meeting for Worship for Business. On and off through the years, my newspaper staffers have faced challenges when doing news gathering, typically in the form of taking notes, during these meetings. They are allowed to attend and to listen, and after the meeting we can access the minutes, which are taken by one of the meeting clerks.  Also after the meeting, staffers can go up to people who participated in the meeting to ask if they might like to be interviewed about what they said.

Considering we are a private school and also that the type of meeting in question is a religious meeting, the access we do have (to attend, to retrieve minutes afterwards) is not terrible, but the staff would still prefer being able to take their own notes during the meetings. Through the years, we have had conversations about access and whether it’s a violation of press rights to keep reporters from taking notes in what, in our school anyway, is essentially governmental proceedings.

Private schools, of course, do not have First Amendment protections like our public school counterparts.  However, my students and I have been fortunate that our school does not engage in prior restraint or prior review. I have been in meetings at conferences where other private school advisers and their staffers report being subject to blatant censorship from their administrators; my students and I are grateful that we have not had to contend with this.

Still, considering the wider context of increasing threats against student journalism (see here and here and here, just for starters) it seems like a really good time to finally research this issue.

In the United States, according to Patricia Guadalupe’s December 2025 article “Navigating the Legal Minefield: A Reporter’s Guide to Newsgathering Laws,” there is a “fundamental tension” in the laws that govern journalism: reporters have more rights to publish news than they have to actually gather it.

Generally, reporters have the same rights as a typical member of the public when it comes to entering places where they wish to gather information. Credentialed reporters can access sessions in Congress, criminal court cases, some civil cases, and so forth, but they are able to access these credentials because 1.) they are working for a reputable and active news organization, and 2.) because they have gone through the established channels to obtain those credentials. 

According to Guadalupe, press credentials are a form of permission and are not in themselves a right, though if, for example, reporters have their credentials revoked as a form of retaliation then this might constitute a breach of press rights. There is an ongoing case (as of late November 2025, the case was argued in federal appeals court) regarding the White House barring the Associated Press from entering White House press conferences in February 2025 because they would not use President Trump’s term “Gulf of America” and instead used “Gulf of Mexico,” causing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavett to claim that the AP was spreading lies.

Reporters have rights to access spaces that are considered public or that are public forums, but unless they have permission, they are subject to the same restrictions as everyone else in those spaces.  For example, reporters might not be allowed into a roped-off crime scene and are not allowed to gather news in spaces that a reasonable person would consider private, like a public bathroom or a hospital room.

Reporters also do not have rights to enter private property, like a church or other place of worship, or a home, unless they are given permission by someone who has the authority to grant it; additionally, if reporters are asked to leave private property, they should do so. 

Reporters entering churches without permission puts them at risk for charges beyond trespassing, like obstructing people’s right to practice their religion.  For example, there are currently charges pending against freelance journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, who went into a St. Paul, Minnesota church in January 2026 along with a group of protesters to report on the protest. The case presents a number of ethical issues to consider when you’re a reporter doing this type of work. (If you are interested in this case, read this recent in-depth New York Times profile of Lemon.) 

Another important ethical consideration for scholastic journalists is to do no harm.  Consider “safe spaces” in schools.  Affinity groups, for example, are increasingly common.  Should a scholastic reporter expect to enter into an affinity group in their school with the intention of news gathering?

My sense is no, they should not.  The whole point of affinity groups is to curate an environment of shared trust so people can feel safe to discuss sensitive issues; this means there is a general expectation of privacy among the attendees. In fact, the affinity groups at my school often establish norms at the beginning of the year, and privacy is almost always among them.

Additionally, the Society of Professional Journalists ethics section on minimizing harm would seem to apply when it comes to reporting in safe spaces:

“Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect. Journalists should: Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.”

Finally, what about my situation, where the students are not typically allowed to take notes during student government meetings?  Based on the research I did, since our meeting takes place in the context of a religious service, the people who run the student government meetings during Meeting for Worship for Business are well within their rights to ask reporters not to take notes if that feels like it is disrespectful or inappropriate or if it somehow interferes with the religious practice itself.  And, we are at a private school.

But the “Seek Truth and Report It” section of the SPJ ethics says:

“Recognize a special obligation to serve as watchdogs over public affairs and government. Seek to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in the open, and that public records are open to all.” [Italics mine]

I interpret this to mean that it is the responsibility of the adviser and the newspaper staff to advocate for the school government’s business to be conducted in a manner where newsgathering is allowed, as long as it is done respectfully.

In order to understand how I might help my staff thoughtfully approach this advocacy, I spoke with longtime reporters Robert Scheer and Narda Zacchino.  

Scheer said to research the past and to use that as a way to make a moral and educational argument about the value of newsgathering.

“Quakers have been around a while,” he said.  “How have they been accountable in the past?” 

He suggested looking into the Quakers’ historical relationship with the ideals of free press and free speech in order to determine whether there is a precedent for the value of these principles in Quaker ethics (there is) and to even explore if anything like this has ever come up at our school. 

Zacchino had a lot to say about the importance of accuracy in the newsgathering process.  When a reporter cannot take notes, this “invites mistakes and misinterpretations.”  She added that everyone is susceptible to bias, even meeting clerks who take the minutes, making it all the more important to have trained reporters also taking notes.  Further, the minutes don’t communicate tone or intention, which reporters will add to their detailed notes in real time, providing crucial context for assembling an article later.

I believe my students and I have a case to make.

Onward.

Resources

• Can You Protest Inside or Near a Church? First Amendment Analysis
• Navigating the Legal Minefield: A Reporter’s Guide to Newsgathering Laws — palabra.
  • “ … while the First Amendment protects the publication of news, it offers surprisingly limited protection for the gathering of that news.”
• Guide to legal rights in the U.S. – Committee to Protect Journalists
• Police, Protesters, and the Press | The Reporters Committee
• Denial of Access – U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
• Journalists, Know Your Rights at Police Scenes, Protests – National Press Foundation | NPF
• Six principles of scholastic journalism
• New: NSPA Model Code of Ethics for High School Journalists
• NSPA Code of Ethics 09.indd
• Newsgathering (archives) | The Reporters Committee
• RTCA Media Coverage Rules – RTCA Capitol Hill | Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association
  • See the rules that govern radio and tv outlets when covering the capitol
• Rules and Regulations | Periodical Press Gallery for the House of Representatives
  • See the rules that govern reporting and gaining credentials to report in the House of Representatives
• First Amendment Handbook | The Reporters Committee