Innovating Student Journalism

Being an innovator is not easy, especially when it comes to student-run publications. A journalist is someone who should have a free voice to write about the things that are good and bad — great achievements, yes, but also things that need a little push to become an achievement.

I believe I bring a lot to the world of student journalism when thinking about “changing” the normal that is how student-run school newspapers or news outlets operate. I’ve been a part of a journalism class for three years now, and as an ongoing contributor to my high school’s student newspaper The Heights Herald, I’ve worked tirelessly not just to become a better writer, editor, and photographer, but I’ve worked tirelessly for change at the building and district level too.

I was a staff writer and photographer my sophomore year, promoted to feature editor and lead photographer during my junior year, and finally moved up the ranks to being one of the Herald’s two Editors-in-Chief for my senior year. During my junior year, I focused more on events, people and groups within my school and the community — profile pieces that helped highlight some of our academics, extracurriculars, and more. But now in my senior year, well, I’ve…developed more of a voice and opinion.

Although opinions are what allows discourse to thrive and encourages passions to ignite, I think especially writers with a platform can get looked at as “problematic” for having strong opinions and wanting to share those opinions. Even the most basic beliefs regarding equality or human rights can be labeled as “controversial.” I have found myself recently trying to bring certain issues within our community and high school to light. My school’s administration, however, has suggested that perhaps topics such as communication breakdowns between staff and students, or whether school resource officers belong in academic workspaces, don’t need to be talked or written about in a public setting.

So, unfortunately, we do get censored on important stories that would amplify marginalized voices and genuine student concerns. We are currently trying to publish an online story about frustrations and miscommunications regarding our prayer room for our Muslim students, but we’re having problems with our principal and assistant principal saying our information is inaccurate although our information is all correct according to various student voices that too often have gone ignored.

Our principal has indicated on several occasions that he also wants us as a publication to change our tone and focus only on amplifying positive, affirming student voices. Our school’s leaders ultimately want us as both a student-run newspaper and as an institution at large to exude a persona of “we have no problems” when literally every school does. We are just trying to put some issues into the spotlight so they can be known about so the powers within the school and the community can work towards improvement.

We are also lucky to be one of the few public schools student newspapers in the state that still has a print edition, so I decided to do the most recent centerspread of the paper about vaccinations since recently the booster for the Meningococcal vaccine for 16-year-olds is now required in public schools in Minnesota, and vaccination rates among children have had a large decrease as the years have gone by. The latest mandate caused a huge uproar among my school’s student body since many of us, including myself, were told we couldn’t come to school the next day.

And yes, as expected, many students continued coming to school due to some families not understanding the severity of the requirement, others not comprehending the message due to language barriers, and inconsistent enforcement by building administration. Although we as students knew we needed this vaccine to attend, there was no set date or clear message stating, “if you don’t get your vaccination by this date, you can’t come to school.” It was always either someone who isn’t even the registered school nurse, whether it was a media center clerk or a student dean telling students they couldn’t come back the next day.

I was angry and confused, and my peers were too. I knew I had to write about this. But because of past censorship, I decided on a better approach than simply a scathing op-ed that would surely get blocked. I chose instead to make it a multi-faceted, graphic-heavy, profile-centric educational piece. I found quickly as I began my research and interviews that what I was really doing was trying to provide information about immunizations as a whole to the student body and school community with sources such as the Minnesota Department of Health, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the CDC. This also allowed me to tap into my past skills as feature editor and spin the story as a showcase for all of the nurses working in our district.

So often student journalism is seen as merely covering sporting events or fun events happening within the community, and this is important and appreciated work, but it’s so much more than that. It’s an opportunity to galvanize and educate, to exchange ideas and challenge the status quo. My whole journalism class worked together to, for the first time as a publication, put a voter’s guide together this past November. We reached out to all the people running for my district’s school board, county commissioner, secretary of state, and so many more! We reached out to each candidate asking why people should vote for them and what they hope to accomplish if they are chosen to represent our community’s constituents. We gave all people from every party an equal opportunity to tell us, and give whoever read the guide a chance to have a one-stop shop to get all the information needed to make informed decisions in the voting booth. The final product was perceived very well amongst students and staff within our school and even citizens who live in my community, who passed around the link on Facebook and commented about its usefulness, with one voter even saying they likely wouldn’t have voted had they not come across it!

I have learned and will continue to promote the innovative notion that student voices, despite youth and relative inexperience, have the potential to be the biggest advocates for change. Silencing or controlling student voices when things aren’t going well is not only wrong — it doesn’t work. So, my innovation is that I try to write about the things that need to be talked about and add other students’ voices too — especially those that often get overlooked. I don’t try to make my district look bad. Actually, I truly love my district. My parents both work in the schools, and I’ve gone through my whole life K–12 here. I want to show that I care about my district, that I know that we can do so much better than how we’re doing now, and we should be doing better. Sometimes, it just takes a little finesse to make your voice heard.