About

Tower is the award-winning newspaper of The Masters School. Tower is a member of the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA), Journalism Education Association (JEA) and Quill and Scroll.

Tower has won several Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) and National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) awards for excellence in print and for digital packages. Tower has won over 50 Best of SNO awards since December 2020, many of them being related to coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tower won 10 NSPA awards in 2022, including fifth place for multimedia journalist of the year, third place for artist of the year, second place for broadcast features story, and first place for broadcast news story, among others.

Tower also won third place in the NSPA Best of Show Broadsheet category, and took home fifth place for high school website in 2021. Tower Broadcast News won three NSPA awards in 2021, and the producer was awarded JEA New York Journalist of the Year. For the 2013-2014 school year, Tower won the NSPA Newspaper Pacemaker award for the broadsheet 8 or fewer pages category. Tower has also been awarded the gold medal by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

TBN, Tower’s sister organization is the award-winning broadcast news program of The Masters School. TBN is a member of the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA), Journalism Education Association (JEA) and Quill and Scroll. Founded by former Tower Editor-in-Chief, Logan Schichiano ’21 in 2020, TBN has since flourished and has grown since then, and is a 2023 NSPA Pacemaker finalist.

View our print issues at http://www.issuu.com/MastersTower

Subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@MastersTBN

Policies

Coverage Policy

Our news coverage is focused primarily on Masters-related topics. While stories don’t need to be directly associated with The Masters School, they should have a relevant connection to our community. Therefore, we do not typically cover national or global news unless there is a clear and significant local angle that directly impacts our community. Our aim is to allocate space in our news section to highlight both positive and challenging aspects of campus life at The Masters School, aligning with our paper’s mission to inform, clarify, and report on conflicts and controversies.

Please note we do NOT accept paid posts or guest posts from individuals or companies outside of the Masters community to promote content or products on other websites.

Prior Review and Restraint Policy

In accordance with an official Journalism Education Association statement, Tower agrees that “the practice of administrative prior review [serves] no legitimate educational purpose. Prior review leads only to censorship by school officials or to self-censorship by students with no improvement in journalistic quality or learning.”

Tower acknowledges that the administration of the school desires not to be embarrassed by the facts and opinions published in Tower, however, as a school that prides itself on student-centered learning and urges students to dare in their academic endeavors, free speech should be allowed and encouraged. Student editors, in consultation with Tower advisors and following Tower policies, should make all content decisions without prior review or restraint from school officials.

Takedown Policy

News Pieces: We strive to be accurate and to follow all copyright and libel laws. We will make corrections to online stories when we do make mistakes. Prior to publication, our editorial board works to ensure the accuracy, and validity of each piece and to maintain a high ethical standard. If there is a request for a published piece to be removed, the editorial board will evaluate the request, and respond accordingly. If our counsel deems statements in a published piece to be libelous, and/or in violation of copyright laws, we will agree to requests to remove news stories.

Opinion Pieces: As a student-run newspaper we try to balance being a historical record and a forum for students to take intellectual chances in their writing. We will not take down published opinion pieces unless information put forward in the piece is deemed to be false.

Inclusion Statement

As a publication, Tower is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in our newsroom and in our coverage of the Masters community and beyond. We strive to create an inclusive student forum in which well-founded discussions on current events are welcome and encouraged. It is our mission to become a publication in which all backgrounds are represented and a platform on which all perspectives in the local community can be seen, heard, and shared.

If you have a viewpoint you wish to share and publish, please see our Letter to the Editor policy below.

Letters to the Editor Policy

Tower welcomes and encourages letters to the editor from our community. To submit, please send your signed letter as a Google Doc to towereditors@mastersny.org. After submission, a member of the editorial board will review your letter and provide feedback and a deadline for incorporating any suggested changes.

All submissions must meet the editorial board’s standards for civil discourse and relevance to our readers. Tower reserves the right to edit all work for clarity, style, brevity and accuracy. All letters to the editor must be signed but names may be withheld for publication. Tower may choose not to publish a letter if it fails to meet these standards. Letters to the editor will only be promoted on Tower social media if they are directly in response to an article published in Tower.

Comment Policy

Comments on stories are posted on our website at the editorial discretion of the Tower staff. To be eligible for publication, comments must adhere to the editorial board’s standards of civil discourse and include a valid email address for verification purposes. Please note that the provided email address does not need to be a Masters School email address.