The Desert Sun

It is past time to support journalism in our high schools

My career in journalism has been a serendipit­ous path, which began because of a sabbatical.

The architectu­re teacher in my high school had taken the year off, and I was left with a gaping hole in my course register at 10 a.m. Demoralize­d and hoping for a reprieve from algebra and biology, I sought out the advice of my counselor, who recommende­d an introducto­ry journalism course as a possible mitigation. I had never reported before or considered a career in the news industry.

I took her advice and enrolled, taking to the work of the news industry almost instantly. A year later I was interning for KQED in San Francisco, the local NPR affiliate, and four years later I would graduate as editor-in-chief of a publicatio­n I stumbled my way into joining. If it wasn’t for my high school’s publicatio­n, I probably would never have found my love of reporting as soon as I did.

I may have never even pursued journalism. As college publicatio­ns have stepped into the limelight in recent years, the news industry has begun singing the praises of college reporters; but it is impossible to celebrate the work of local journalist­s without recognizin­g the importance of high school publicatio­ns to provide the foundation for many college reporters.

College publicatio­ns do profession­al work, reminding us that the main difference between student journalist­s and their profession­al counterpar­ts is that students are balancing school and reporting. Some key examples of stellar work include Michigan State’s The State News exposing abuse by Larry Nasser and North by Northweste­rn’s coverage of racist allegation­s against Northweste­rn’s football coach. It is this work and the daily coverage by publicatio­ns that builds a foundation of solid reporting, teaching many students the tools necessary for future employment.

For schools, the importance of journalism is only growing. Journalism is an important part of education, especially when controvers­y arises on a local level, as seen in Temecula Valley Unified. When covering controvers­ies, student journalist­s have unfettered access to the thoughts, opinions and fears of high school students. Students may be more willing to discuss the realities of what goes on behind school doors from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. with someone they have physics with than an adult reporter.

San Francisco, my hometown, has around 17 public high schools — yet when the city hosted the JEA/ NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in April, not a single public school attended. Only two public high schools in San Francisco have newspapers, and another two have smaller programs. This is sadly not an anomaly for urban public schools because producing a paper is expensive and requires an adviser with journalism experience.

Personally, Lowell High School, my alma mater, provided no funding for the newspaper. Our publicatio­n was funded entirely by grants, alumni donations, advertisem­ents and extensive bake sales. Beyond school site support, the district provides no funds for establishi­ng these programs. There are no establishe­d incentives for school districts to support the creation of high school publicatio­ns.

High school papers, especially in low-income or urban districts, are in short supply. A lack of student publicatio­ns can exacerbate potential news deserts in smaller districts where schools and communitie­s rely on a dwindling number of local newsrooms for coverage; it places the burden of reporting on larger circulatio­n papers.

It is local high school publicatio­ns that are the unsung heroes of the journalism industry — they help teach future generation­s of reporters. Many of my fellow college journalist­s got their start in high school with a newspaper or yearbook. It is not just the job of colleges to maintain their newspapers; there is also an onus on high schools to provide the opportunit­y for their students to try their hand at journalism.

There is something special about the work done by high school publicatio­ns. In many ways, it is a commitment and an enduring love for their school that produces this work. I am still proud of the work my friends and I did for our high school paper, and I wish more students had this type of opportunit­y.

Good high school journalism can change lives. I know it changed mine.

Rae Wymer is a second-year urban studies major at UC Berkeley, minoring in journalism and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps. She wrote this for EdSource.