Direct Lines
Ties That Bind
By Sandy Woodcdock
I spent most of my adult life in high school. Before joining the NAA Foundation, I advised newspaper and yearbook programs, and taught journalism and photojournalism.
I had wonderful relationships with professional newspapers during those years. Both my local newspaper and a larger market newspaper offered recognition programs, conducted workshops for both advisers and students, and were willing to do classroom outreach.
So, you can imagine my dismay when I read the following on the Journalism Education Association e-forum:
“We’ve had our local paper – which unfortunately prints our paper – ‘borrow’ heavily from our stories, including using the same sources that we hunted down for ‘their’ version,” an adviser wrote. “…[T]his is why we don’t cooperate when they call and try to be friendly in the interest of ‘teaching young journalists.’ ”
Yet so much is gained when the scholastic and the professional press collaborate.
Students benefit by hearing speakers from the professional journalism ranks, visiting newsrooms and getting their work printed by newspapers for distribution to a larger audience.
Newspapers benefit, too. Research shows that young people are forming lifelong readership habits between the ages of 12 and 14, and that youth content is the key to getting and keeping them.
Scholastic advisers who turn away from the opportunity their local newspapers offer for students to reach bigger audiences deprive these young journalists. Newspapers that do not cultivate a relationship with the student press miss the chance to position themselves with the readers of tomorrow. Everyone loses.
That said, what can scholastic journalism advisers do to ensure their students receive proper credit when newspapers use their work?
Bill Norton, editor of TeenStar at The Kansas City (Mo.) Star, says that the best approach is a nonthreatening one that provides an opportunity for everyone involved to learn.
Norton suggests sending a letter to the managing editor, the editor with oversight of the section in which the article appeared, or the newspaper’s reader representative or ombudsman. Enclose a clip of the student story and a clip of the newspaper story. Ask the editor to help figure out how this happened.
Camille Easton, coordinator of GenYsis at The Victoria (Texas) Advocate, agrees. “Maybe the editors aren’t aware that a reporter did that,” she wrote in a message to the YEA e-forum. “Or it could be that a reporter actually did write a similar story if they were covering the same event. Whatever the case, communication is essential! We all need to work together.”
Youth editors wanting to reach out to journalism advisers might send them an invitation, Norton says. The invitation should include an objective – something every teacher understands. For example, once Norton states his goal of featuring the work of young writers in his newspaper, he then asks for ideas on how to “get this to work.”
When advisers have had negative past experiences with professional newspapers, Norton recommends beginning a dialogue about what newspapers can do better.
Other effective TeenStar practices include asking permission to reprint articles from school publications, and crediting school publications for being the original source of story ideas that are adapted for the teen section.
Erin Orr, features editor at The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill., says “it’s too easy for any of us to point the finger in the opposite direction when something happens – be it crossed wires, a simple misunderstanding or something more blatant – instead of trying to find a solution that serves both sides. Doing so only hurts the … students in the long run.”
NAA Foundation Director Sandy Woodcock can be reached at (571) 366-1008 or sandy.woodcock@naa.org.
