Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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Reaching
Student Journalists
ASNE, local newspapers connect with needy high schools
to produce or improve their student newspapers
“It was a blast.”
That’s the way Victoria Ogden, an editor with Community Newspapers Co.,
described the recent partnership between the Middlesex News, Framingham,
Mass., and student journalists at Framingham High School.
The News was one of seven dailies that participated in ASNE’s Student
Press Partners high school journalism demonstration project last year.
The seven newspapers included small and large dailies in urban and suburban
communities across the country.
The purpose of the project is to revitalize high school journalism by
developing partnerships between campus newspapers and their hometown daily
newspaper. Editors of the local papers selected high schools to participate
in the program based on two criteria: first, that the school have a diverse
student population and/or diverse student newspaper staff; and that the
school newspaper was struggling to survive or the school wanted to start
a campus paper.
With the help of a $40,000 grant from The Freedom Forum, ASNE gave $2,500
to each participating high school to upgrade or to purchase new desktop
publishing equipment. Each participating newspaper also agreed to provide
a matching grant for technology improvements, such as computer software,
scanners or digital cameras. The newspaper partners also assigned a newsroom
professional to work with the school newspaper adviser and student staff.
Each partnership established specific goals for the academic year, such
as doubling the number of issues published, developing a Web site or redesigning
the student paper.
In Framingham, where 30 percent of the students speak a second language
at home, the aim of the partnership was “to bring new energy to the student
newspaper … and to shape it to reflect the rich ethnic and cultural diversity
of the student body.” For nine months, newsroom professionals at the Middlesex
News conducted workshops on basic reporting skills, pagination and design,
and diversity in news content for a group of about 20 students working
on the Eagle’s Eye, Ogden said. The News also gave a guided tour of the
newsroom and offered students tips on marketing and reader surveys, she
said.
Many participating editors said the project re-energized newsroom professionals
and offered fresh perspectives on news coverage. “The students sometimes
gave surprising opinions” on news stories, said Ken Koehl of The Tampa
Tribune, adding that the students often wanted to play “role reversal”
with professionals in discussing news stories. The Tribune’s partnership
helped create a new newspaper, The Blake Blaze, during the first year of
a magnet high school in downtown Tampa.
The partnerships also helped students earn bylines and jobs. The Tampa
Tribune’s TeensLife section published articles by several students in the
project, while The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, Calif., and The News-Times
of Danbury, Conn., hired some of the students for summer jobs.
The project also demonstrated that attracting young people to journalism
often starts with reaching out. “The kids were excited that someone cared,”
said Nora Lopez of The Dallas Morning News, who worked with the local chapter
of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on its high school
journalism projectJennings is diversity director of ASNE..
Jennings is diversity director of ASNE.
ASNE editors interested in participating in the Student Press Partners
program should contact Veronica Jennings, ASNE Diversity Director, e-mail
vjenn@asne.org, or call 703/453-1126.
