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46 pages • 1 hour read
Andrew ClementsThe Landry News
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Ethics of Journalism
At its heart, The Landry News is a story about the transformation of a newspaper as the people who work on it grow and change. The novel explores the moral obligations of good journalism, as well as the different aspects of what it means to report honest news. Through an examination of investigation versus invasion of privacy, the limitations of free speech, and the plurality of truth, The Landry News shows the importance of ethics for journalists and, by extension, wider society.
The novel explores the boundaries between appropriate facts and intrusion. In Chapter 3, Cara tells the kids on the bus she knows things about certain kids at school because “people who make newspapers need to know what’s going on” (16). While this is true, there is a difference between knowing what’s going on and deliberately digging up irrelevant information about someone just to report it as truth. Prior to the book’s opening, Cara used The Landry News to report in a hurtful way, giving more information than was necessary for a story to make sense. By doing so, Cara invaded the privacy of the people she wrote about and put details into the public eye that didn’t need to be there, even if they were technically true. The first edition of The Landry News at Cara’s new school also does this, particularly in the editorial where Cara digs up information about Mr. Larson’s pay level and other topics that, while publicly available, are not things that need to be shared. Seeing the harm this article brings to Mr. Larson is a turning point for Cara and, when combined with the willingly shared divorce article in later chapters, a lesson to both her and the reader about the difference between investigation and invading privacy. Cara digging up information on Mr. Larson to write a scathing article is an invasion of his privacy because it brings things into the light that Mr. Larson would rather be left alone. By contrast, the divorce article is very personal but, since the author wants it to be shared, it is not an invasion. The novel highlights how the difference between investigation and invasion of privacy is a matter of ethical case-by-case approach rather than blanket rules: When Dr. Barnes seeks to use the divorce editorial as an example of inappropriate content, the story shows that he fails to take into account the piece’s context.
The novel continually asks questions about the moral responsibilities attached to freedom of expression. Throughout The Landry News, the students in Mr. Larson’s class are faced with the question of what to include in the newspaper. Through Mr. Larson’s lesson, the novel makes explicit that freedom of speech is enshrined in the US, but this does not equate to the right to say anything with impunity. The original version of The Landry News took freedom of speech as the right to say whatever the paper felt needed to be said, no matter who got hurt. Though Cara, with few exceptions, always reported true stories, she did so without regard for how those stories would impact the object of their scrutiny. In early editions of The Landry News, Cara tells the truth in ways meant to harm. This was largely because her motives were not good, as her writing was driven by personal anger. Cara’s early newspapers get her in trouble at her old school because they wield the truth as a weapon, turning factual accounts into fact-filled attacks against people and groups. The Landry News shows what happens when authors include their negative views or feelings in what should be unbiased stories. Later editions of The Landry News are written from a more neutral angle, and the inclusion of more authors means that the paper isn’t one person’s unfiltered view. This transition into a collaborative effort shows how ethics are more easily served when multiple perspectives are represented.
The Landry News, both the novel and the titular newspaper, explores the major obstacles facing unbiased, fact-based journalism, as well as the obligation of news to present readers with opinion-free stories. Cara’s ability to separate her beliefs from her writing proves difficult until she accepts that truth is best told in a kind, rather than hurtful, way. The novel teaches a pragmatic lesson: Although a person can say most things, it doesn’t follow that they should. More subtly, it traces the personal consequences of saying hurtful things, even if they are true. It may be Cara’s legal right to do this, but it doesn’t make her happy or popular, and it forces her to change schools. Once Cara is aware of these nuances and the other underlying principles of good journalism, she sees how the newspaper can be a positive force in her community.
The Importance of Trusting Others
One of the greatest lessons learned by the characters of The Landry News is that they can’t and don’t have to do everything alone. Through Cara accepting help with the newspaper, Mr. Larson learning to trust his students, and the collaboration among the students working on The Landry News, the novel shows how teamwork brings people together and makes them stronger.
At the beginning of the novel, The Landry News is a project Cara started as a way to vent her anger at her parents’ separation. In that way, the newspaper was less of a news source and more of an emotional expression. Once Cara overcomes her frustration, she realizes The Landry News is worth doing because she is good at putting stories together, and she enjoys watching a blank sheet of paper turn into something she created. Even so, the project is a lot of work for just one person. Once Joey introduces the idea of wider circulation, Cara knows it’s the right path but also that she can’t do it alone. This forces her to accept help, which she is initially surprised to find makes the paper better. As more people get involved, Cara comes to understand the benefit of sharing the load and letting multiple perspectives be heard. In addition, Cara finds that having teammates makes her feel useful because people look to her to make decisions and help them with their ideas. When Dr. Barnes shuts down The Landry News, Cara doesn’t hesitate to join her friends in the production of the Guardian because she knows now that it was never about The Landry News itself—rather, it was about the production of a project that brought information and entertainment to its readers. Teamwork helps Cara see the value in trust and lets her grow into a leader.
At the beginning of the book, Mr. Larson wants nothing to do with the students in his class: He is burned out in his job and sees teaching as little more than a reliable paycheck. With the first edition of The Landry News, Mr. Larson realizes that his students want to be taught, which makes him realize how apathetic he’s become. He believed that no one cared if he taught or not, but seeing the truth of what he’s become in Cara’s words makes him understand that he’s pushed his students away. When he decides to become involved in his classroom, Mr. Larson quickly sees the influence he has. His questions make his students think critically, and their responses make him feel like a necessary part of their education. By trusting his students to listen and learn, Mr. Larson is also trusting himself to do a good job, and in doing so, he fosters a relationship within his classroom that lets everyone, including himself, grow as a person. Only after he stops isolating himself does he become the truest version of a teacher.
The novel shows that a group activity also cultivates relationships and helps people find fulfillment in a shared task. Each person who works on the newspaper can point to their contribution and note both what they offered, as well as what they took from collaboration to make their contribution better. In this way, The Landry News presents a life lesson to young readers about what’s possible when people share their talent in a safe space and trust others to offer their perspectives. The characters of The Landry News, including Cara, Mr. Larson, and others, become more than they were because of trust, and their individual growth brings new ideas and perspectives that make The Landry News into more than it ever could have been before Cara shared the project.
How Education Prepares Students for the World
The Landry News focuses primarily on the classroom setting and how Mr. Larson’s teaching style and his contribution to producing a newspaper help his students prepare for the real world. The book offers readers a safe space to explore their ideas, much like the classroom offers a safe space for the students to learn about themselves and the challenges they might face. Through Mr. Larson’s open classroom, the hearing, and the preparation of The Landry News, the novel explores how education lays the groundwork for kids to become adults.
The novel suggests that boundaries are both essential and unimportant to a well-rounded education. At the beginning of the book, Mr. Larson wants nothing to do with his students, and he spends every class reading his newspaper while his students are free to pursue whatever they want, whether it’s educational or not. Mr. Larson calls this an “open classroom,” which is an actual classroom format characterized by free rein for students to learn through independent study and group collaboration. Mr. Larson’s version of this is truly just his way of justifying his disinterest, which both helps and hinders his students. Before Cara produces the first edition of The Landry News, Mr. Larson’s classroom is a haven for messing around, but once the newspaper becomes a classroom fixture, Mr. Larson’s renewed interest in teaching turns his open classroom into an educational space with the inclusion of assignments that students are free to complete however best works for them. Following this change, more learning is accomplished, and students quickly discover the importance of critical thinking and collaboration. With no structure at all, the open classroom offers no context for students, but with the stricture of an assignment, students are suddenly able to learn in new ways, showing how boundaries are necessary to structure the classroom but unimportant in terms of letting students learn at their own pace.
The hearing regarding the divorce story published in The Landry News is the narrative focus of the latter portion of the novel. Rather than shy away from it, Mr. Larson brings the hearing into his classroom to show how the real world influences school life. In Chapter 17, Mr. Larson tells the class that “it’s like we get to mess around in our own private democracy laboratory” (106). Initially, Mr. Larson felt the hearing was the culmination of his years of neglecting his teaching duties. After considering the facts, however, he sees it for what it is—a threat to the paper’s freedom of speech. Rather than feeling defeated, Mr. Larson sees this as an opportunity to educate his students about what happens when the freedom of the press is challenged and what rights the press has to defend itself against censorship and opposing opinions. By doing so, Mr. Larson prepares his students for the challenges of the real world in ways a simple lecture couldn’t accomplish.
The progression of The Landry News from a personal hobby to a shared educational tool helps the novel to explicate the processes of creating and running a newspaper, emphasizing real-life knowledge and skills. The production of The Landry News itself helps the students and the reader understand the steps and workload of a news outlet. Different people have different strengths that lend themselves well to various tasks, such as writing or layout, and The Landry News, like any paper, benefits from having these people work where they have the most to offer. The hearing shows the students there is more to making a newspaper than deciding how to present it and what to include. Considerations like appropriateness of content and reception of readers play a key role in the decision-making process, and they offer additional insight into Cara’s role as editor-in-chief. The various skills employed by the class in their collaborative effort are perceptibly a preparation for life outside the classroom.
Throughout The Landry News, the classroom functions as a place of both academic and real-world learning. The characters experience both traditional learning, as well as self-directed study, and this combination prepares them for real-world situations.
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