About
The Channels is Santa Barbara City College’s student-run online newspaper.
This award-winning newspaper’s goal is to report what is happening on and around campus. It is published as a learning experience, offered under the SBCC Journalism Department, for students to practice the workflow of a real newspaper. Students report, write and photograph stories, as well as produce multimedia projects. They cover campus arts, news and events, sports, issues and personalities for regular publication.
The Channels is published as a learning experience, offered under the SBCC Journalism Department. The editorial and the advertising materials published herein, including any opinions expressed, are the responsibility of the student newspaper staff.
Under appropriate state and federal court decisions, those materials are free from prior restraint by virtue of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, materials published herein, including any opinions expressed, should not be interpreted as the position of the Santa Barbara Community College District, the college or any officer or employee thereof.
Request to remove content
Like in other professional and student newsrooms, The Channels sets the bar high when considering removal of content from our website.
We student journalists strive daily to preserve the integrity of the published record, including publishing timely corrections or clarifications. We do this in the interest of the public’s right to know now—and in the future.
Take-down requests are weighed on a case-by-case basis with senior editors and the faculty adviser, and some situations may require legal guidance.
In general, The Channels is not obliged to take down material that was lawful at the time it was published. This includes content that not defamatory nor an invasion of the individual’s privacy. The fact that someone finds it embarrassing or bothersome does not obligate for The Channels to remove it.
Additionally, material that was lawful at the time of its original publication does not become improper with the passage of time. The Channels cannot be held liable for its failure to update past news articles.
A guiding principle for journalists in making ethical decisions, however, is to “”minimize harm” on sensitive stories or when interviewing private individuals unfamiliar with prevailing journalism standards. For this reason, The Channels reviews each request carefully before deciding whether to remove it from its site.
To contact the editorial staff, email channels@sbcc.edu.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy
While generative artificial intelligence has the potential to improve news reporting, we at The Channels acknowledge that some uses of AI tools can seriously harm journalists’ credibility and their relationships with audiences. Moreover, The Channels is published as a learning experience under the SBCC Journalism Department, with the goal of teaching students fundamental journalism skills and ethics.
As such, The Channels limits usage of AI tools in the course of reporting and producing content. Artificial intelligence tools covered by this policy include, but are not limited to, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Otter.ai, Grammarly, Claude.ai, Perplexity.ai, Dall-E, Invideo.AI, and more. This also includes AI assistants built into other programs, such as the Adobe Creative Suite, Google Docs, Canva and others.
The following uses of generative AI tools are strictly prohibited:
- Writing any portion of a story for publication
- Writing headlines and subheads for publication
- Writing photo captions for publication
- Generating or augmenting photos and videos for publication*
- Editing photos and videos for publication
*AI-generated images are acceptable for publication only if they are being used to illustrate a story about AI and are used for reporting context. In these cases, it must be clearly stated in the photo caption(s) that the image(s) is/are AI-generated, along with the tool used to generate said image(s).
The following uses of AI tools are generally permitted:
- Spell check, grammar help or use as a dictionary/thesaurus
- Transcribing interviews and meeting proceedings with Otter.ai or a similar tool
- Taking Zoom meeting notes using Zoom’s AI assistant
- Soliciting suggestions for improving writing with Grammarly or a similar tool
- Summarizing long or complex documents, or data sets, that are being used as attributed background sources in a story. In this case, it must be clearly stated in the story that an AI tool was used to summarize or synthesize the information.
- Brainstorming ideas for story angles or sources
If a Channels staffer wants to use AI in a way that is not specifically addressed in this policy, they must discuss the use with the editor-in-chief and faculty adviser first. The editor-in-chief has final authority over how AI is used in The Channels.
AI policy violations
All Channels projects are subject to be run through AI checkers, including GPTZero, Grammarly and others. Any stories, photos and videos containing prohibited use of AI will not be published. The project may be killed or reassigned to a new staff member at the discretion of the Editorial Board. If the AI content is discovered after publication, the work will be taken down.
The student who violated the policy will then be referred to the faculty adviser, who, at the very least, will issue a deadline strike for the project in question. This has a direct impact on the student’s grade in the class. The violation will also be reported to the SBCC Office of Student Affairs, as it is considered a violation of SBCC’s academic integrity policy.