This happen in my school in Ireland also - with false credentials.
This part of the story I really respect:
"Under Kansas law, high school journalists are protected from administrative censorship. “The kids are treated as professionals,” Smith said. But with that freedom came a major responsibility to get the story right, Smith said. It also meant overcoming a natural hesitancy many students have to question authority."
Unfortunately, not all U.S. states give students this right.
When I was co-editor of my high school's student newspaper, every issue was subject to administrative review. Our principal literally read every issue prior to publication and told us what could and couldn't be run.
Actually we learned in our high school journalism classes that these protections are federal and based off of court cases. Part of our high-school journalism curriculum was learning the court cases that protected our rights as high-school journalists from school administration interference.
Of course, a school intent on interfering with a newspaper is probably not going to make that part of the curriculum.
You may want to look at the Supreme Court case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which holds that school officials may censor articles in a student newspaper "so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns." That's a pretty broad latitude granted to administrators.
> When I was co-editor of my high school's student newspaper, every issue was subject to administrative review. Our principal literally read every issue prior to publication and told us what could and couldn't be run.
I worked on school papers high school through college. Administrative review served a very useful purpose and kept the quality of the papers higher. I respected every administrator I dealt with.
They have a much harder job than it might appear at first blush -- even the slightest hint of repressing a valid story turns a very harsh spotlight on them.
This part of the story I really respect:
"Under Kansas law, high school journalists are protected from administrative censorship. “The kids are treated as professionals,” Smith said. But with that freedom came a major responsibility to get the story right, Smith said. It also meant overcoming a natural hesitancy many students have to question authority."