Adam Canfield of The Slash
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When I was in high school, a tragic misunderstanding involving a drug transaction between two of my classmates resulted in one shooting the other in the cafeteria.
He survived, but the principal ordered those of us who edited the student newspaper not to report what happened. That ruined our planned front-page headline: "Gun Blazes in Cafeteria Shootout.”
There are no shootouts in Adam Canfield of The Slash, a delightful lesson in journalism disguised as a children’s novel. But it reminds me of my image-conscious principal.
Written by Michael Winerip, an education reporter for The New York Times, the novel is aimed at readers 8 to 12, but can be profitably read by older students, parents, teachers and administrators, especially administrators.
"The Slash" is the student newspaper at the suburban Harris Elementary/Middle School. According to student legend, it’s called "The Slash" because the principal "slashed anything interesting out of every article.” 180
That is until the principal meets her match in Jennifer and Adam, two student editors with a knack for finding news, in and out of school, that officials don’t want printed.
Along the way, Winerip pokes fun at educators who are more interested in test scores than learning and at grown-up reporters who are too lazy or beholden to the powerful to even try to get at the truth.
When Phoebe, "the world’s greatest third grade reporter” fears offending someone she’s writing about, Adam, "the most overprogrammed middle-school student in America,” advises her:
"Our job as reporters is to tell the truth as we see it. It has to be backed by facts, but that’s what good newspapers do. That’s why people read newspapers. They trust reporters to be honest about what they see. They trust reporters to ask questions that everyone else is too embarrassed to ask or too afraid.” 116-7.
Jennifer learns a lesson about the value of "stupid” questions: "The lawyer told her there’s nothing he respects more than reporters who know what they don’t know. ‘It’s the ones who know everything who do all the harm,’ he said.” 265.
If Winerip’s budding journalists seem precocious, some of his adult characters are too conveniently clueless. But he knows how kids think and how schools operate.
A recent Knight Foundation survey of high school students, teachers and principals asked if newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval; 51% of students and 80% of teachers and principals said yes.
Asked if high school journalists should be allowed to report controversial issues without approval of school authorities, 58% of students, 39% of teachers and 25% of principals said yes. The staff of "The Slash" wouldn’t be surprised.