Selected items of interest to the media community
• Quantum Principals Volunteer for Journalists in the Schools Program
August 20, 2010
How do you get high school students to take an interest in their school? You ask them what they have to say - and then give them the tools to create a student newspaper.
Quantum Media Principals Carla Graubard and Ava Seave, along with colleague Brian O’Leary, principal of Magellan Media Consulting Partners, taught several summer classes in July on marketing media web sites to high school students at Urban Assembly Media High School and Frank McCourt High School, both in Manhattan.
These summer classes are part of a larger program, run by retired Newsday reporter and editor Leslie Seifert, called Journalists in the Schools. The goal of the program is to revitalize student-run journalism at the high school level. The classes taught by Quantum principals focused on showing the students how to find their audience. They explained what kinds of marketing studies are commonly done, and how to go about constructing one’s own study. The students used this information to prepare a proposal for a study to do in their own school, before they launch a new school newspaper or website.
At the end of the summer classes, which also cover reporting, design and reporting for the web, students will be asked to launch a new school paper in the fall semester. The program aims to start papers in 12 high schools within five years.
Seifert ran a pilot program successfully at Middle College High School in Queens for eight years. The pilot had students work very closely with media professionals to put out a school newspaper every five weeks. Initially, the students, who were considered to be at risk of dropping out, were alienated and disengaged from the school, but as time went on the paper became a source of pride the students were excited about. The school principal credited the program with helping to lower the dropout rate.
The larger Journalists in the Schools program hopes to take the basic principals used in the pilot and expand them, to create a digital newsroom in each school; cover activities on shared campuses that affect more than one school; create a searchable database modeled after Nexus for readers; and to create a website for citywide school news.
The program praises journalism as a way to help students feel connected to their schools, and to feel pride in their work. The end goal of the project is to create a non-profit news network run by and for New York City Public High School students that offers coverage both in print and online. The theory is that the students involved would become engaged members of the community, instead of feeling disconnected from it. The network would allow them to also be aware of what’s going on in other city high schools, and to work together to address issues that affect more than one school.
The Journalists in the Schools program’s success will be easy to spot, in lower dropout rates; frequent web updates; regular newspaper printing; increased participation in school involvement; and higher college application rates.