The Connecticut Youth Journalism Association needs to begin. Connecticut needs an organization to be a central clearinghouse to help middle school, high school and collegiate journalists produce quality work.

The climate for high school journalism is a black eye on the face of Connecticut's prized educational system. How many high school newspapers exist in the Nutmeg State today? No one has any idea.

I'm quite certain that there are fewer high school papers today than there were when I graduated from Waterbury's Holy Cross High School in 1990. In fact, Holy Cross shut down the Cross Chronicle two years ago.

I thought HCHS would always publish the award-winning Chronicle. I was saddened to learn that it has fallen the same way many urban high school newspapers did - to budget cuts.

The Cross Chronicle, when I was lowly features editor, won numerous awards, and many of the writers I know graduated to professional careers. The basics I learned in those classes serve me today.

Every year, attending the crowded Hartford Courant's High School Journalism workshop was a rite of passage for us Chroniclers. Reading the Courant's compilation of the best high school writing showed me where my peers were at.

In November 2003, I returned to the Courant's workshop, this time as a moderator. Once again, I was saddened to see how it was a shadow of its former self, with maybe a dozen papers in attendance. Kudos goes out to the Courant's Newspapers in Education department for maintaining this tradition in the face of a stiff fiscal climate that is eviscerating other parts of the newsroom.

This relentless drive for profit has taken casualties in the way that high school students view the First Amendment and media in general. A recent survey, released on Feb. 1, 2005, revealed that many high schoolers think that there should be limits to what newspapers can say.

"A new survey of high school students has found that one in three students feel that newspapers should get 'government approval" of stories prior to publication. One third of students also said the press has 'too much freedom,'" according to a report on Democracy Now!

Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington said on Democracy Now! that "the survey confirms that students are not learning enough about the First Amendment in school."

Commentator Bill Maher was aghast. In the Friday, Feb. 18, Los Angeles Times, in a story titled "Kids say the darndest, most Stalinist things," he wrote: "What's so frightening is that we're seeing the beginnings of the first post-9/11 generation -- the kids who first became aware of the news under an 'Americans need to watch what they say' administration, the kids who've been told that dissent is un-American and therefore justifiably punished by a fine, imprisonment -- or the loss of your show on ABC."

In Connecticut, an advocate, an organization dedicated to improving the conditions under which the youth journalist labors, could be steps to improve the situation.

The Connecticut Youth Journalism Association could help train student journalists, develop editors, and assist moderators. From teaching basic Constitutional law to finding the best price on printing, the CYJA could almost immediately impact the publishing climate.

The opportunities for this organization are limited only by our imagination of how we can serve youth. What if the CYJA created a high school newswire to distribute the articles that affect all high school students in state? Say if a sophomore in Westport explored some of the effects of No Child Left Behind, students in Winsted or Storrs might benefit from reading it, too.

Perhaps a central website could print the best of the best youth written stories, as well as those about youth issues by the professional press.

The CYJA should be closely tied to daily and weekly news outlets in state. The future of our republican form of democracy in Connecticut depends upon well-trained reporters who are familiar with the turf they cover. News outlets have a responsibility to train the next generation of reporters, editors and decision makers, and to keep them local if possible.

To that end, the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists could assist with mentoring opportunities and fundraising.

Most funds for this should come from Connecticut's for-profit news outlets, some of which enjoy tax subsidies. These tv, radio and print outlets should contribute wealth, wisdom and work to ensure that promising journalists develop into the future's fierce watchdogs of democracy that the founding fathers imagined.

The Connecticut Youth Journalism Association should ally itself with a university-level journalism department, perhaps UConn, to provide interns and maybe even a home. The Colorado High School Press Association is housed at the Colorado State University journalism department.

CSU student interns maintain rosters of current publications. On the website, you can find the phone numbers and emails of all high school newspaper and yearbook editors and moderators in Colorado. Additionally, these college students help organize the annual conferences.

Many other states have such journalism organizations, and of those state directors I've talked to, many say Connecticut is weak in this area.

By bringing people to the table, generating excitement and involving young people in the decision making processes, this organization could help youth learn the positive role the press plays in our society.

3/9/05

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High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington

"The climate for high school journalism is a black eye on the face of Connecticut's prized educational system."

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Youth Journalists Deserve Help

"The climate for high school journalism is a black eye on the face of Connecticut's prized educational system."

Youth Journalists
Deserve Help