Is there a place for humor and satire in the high school press?

This post was prompted by a discussion on the JEA listserv. An adviser asked about an editor's plans to publish an "April Fool" edition. Most of the respondents gave this idea a strong and quick thumbs down. But it seems to me that there is more to talk about here.

The conventional reasons given for avoiding publishing humor and satire grow out of fear (of readers not "getting" the references/jokes, of juvenile/vulgar humor, of losing standing in the community, etc.). There's something in me that resists that fearfulness.


The fact that high school students rarely can pull off humor or satire may actually be a factor in encouraging them to explore these forms of writing. After all, most of our students didn't find basic news writing to be all that easy until they had practiced extensively. We certainly should encourage our students to analyze how humor and satire work -- after all, our students are avid consumers of satiric programs like "The Daily Show," and one of our jobs is to help students become more savvy consumers of media.

I regularly see individual high school columnists pull off humor and satire in papers across the country. I also see many terrific editorial cartoons in high school media that lampoon the powerful. The key is that those successful forays into potentially risky territory are focused, well-developed, and skillful. They also tend to reside in opinion sections, where readers (and administrators) often grant greater leeway.

And that leads me to point out that "April Fool" editions tend to get overextended, trying to force humor into situations where it just doesn't work. Humor and satire can add to a publication's voice, but such techniques need to be appropriate and organic, not forced into a one-time enterprise.

So... I agree with most of my colleagues that April Fool editions are not worth the effort. But an editorial cartoonist or regular columnist who has the skill, sophistication and courage to point out the silliness or boneheadedness that we all know occasionally occurs in our communities... well, that is something we should be able to support.