On+Student+Newspapers%2C+Past+and+Present

On Student Newspapers, Past and Present

May 26, 2016

I began advising student publications here at Lyme-Old Lyme High School more than a decade ago, and while it was never easy to get kids involved, the current lack of interest is remarkable. In this column I will describe how social media may be our biggest obstacle, and why more traditional journalism still has value — even in a world where everyone can publish, and everyone can have a voice.

When I was in high school, the only kind of media to which we had access was the old-fashioned kind. Phillips Andover had both a radio station and a newspaper, and it was a big deal to be involved with either one. I never had anything published in the newspaper, but I did have a radio program once a week, early in the morning, and it was incredible to know that my voice was going out to the dozen or so kids who might be listening at that hour. In college I started drawing a weekly comic for The Argus, Wesleyan’s paper, and it changed my life. Students and faculty read my cartoons, everyone on campus seemed to know who I was, and I was eventually promoted to an editor of the arts page. Joss Whedon, a budding cartoonist who later went on to fame as a director, was one of my underlings, and we pulled frequent all-nighters getting our page together.

The news staff, though, worked even harder, and it paid off. My first editor in chief at The Argus, Laura Fraser, went on to write bestsellers and features for major newspapers and magazines. Another, Tom Frank, is an investigative reporter for USA Today, while Paul Kusserow is a top health care executive, Jon Yeo is a Director for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Clare Congdon teaches Computer Science at Bowdoin college. They may not all be journalists, but all took the skills they learned at the paper and applied them to extraordinary accomplishments.

That wasn’t the point, however. We all wanted to work on the paper for one reason—and the same reason many of you are on Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook—to have a voice. We sacrificed a lot of time for that privilege, earning our jobs by pasting up articles at three in the morning and making pizza runs; because the feeling, when the paper came out, was amazing. There was your article, your photo, your drawing, your name, your work, in print, for all to see. That satisfaction was its own reward, and we had no shortage of applicants.

The Osprey, of course, is not in print. Like most of your reading, it is online, and will stay here. The cost and environmental impact of using paper is not defensible in an age where you all have screens in your pockets. There, however, is the nub of our dilemma, because you can not only read on your device: you can write, you can photograph, and you can draw. You can select an audience for your creations, and include only your friends. No one can censor you, and no has to approve what you have written. And you know right away if it is good, because lots of people will like it, vote it up, retweet it, and otherwise give it all the attention it deserves, often within minutes.

I understand that there are careers in social media, and that devising hit-worthy text and graphics is a potentially valuable skill. But I am here to tell you that college admissions officers, while valuing work on school papers, will not care how many of your fellow teens happened to find your Tumblr feed aesthetically interesting or your YouTube channel hilarious. This prejudice may strike you as old-fashioned and unfair, but they have reason, because it’s traditional media — not the social kind –that instill skills like clear writing, incisive questioning, clear presentation, fastidious attention to detail, confident collaboration with and management of others, and the ability to stick with a project over several weeks or months: the very skills that will enable you to thrive in the adult organizations that do meaningful work.

I didn’t care about building skills at your age. I learned to draw during times of boredom, because there was hardly ever anything good on TV, and I got involved with a newspaper because I was desperate to be noticed. You, however, growing up digital, never have to be bored, and can’t imagine being invisible. This is not all bad, of course, but there are drawbacks. You’ll have to find other motivations for serious writing, drawing, and publishing: ones that transcend boredom, transcend self-expression, and transcend even the college resume. You will have to identify skills you want—and skills the world wants you to have—and begin developing them for their own sake.

And we would like to believe that a few more of you might decide to do so at The Osprey. We know you can sound off, anonymously and to larger audiences, any day of the week. We know it’s a nuisance to check your facts and subject yourself to editing and censorship by your peers and administration. We know it’s reassuring to select your own audience, to track their reactions in real time, and to pull down posts the moment people begin to dislike them. In short, we know you are already publishing, and that you are accustomed to a level of convenience and control that we cannot begin to match. But if you want to learn the life skills of successful people, in all walks of life, there may still be no better place to start than a school newspaper.

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