Journalism is the function of news that is available to everyone so that they are informed of current events and can make their own interpretation based on that information. With the availability of the internet, everyone has access to news and issues in the world from many different sources. Our high school created Minarets Press, a digital-based news-source, to let students, parents, and members of the community know what is happening at Minarets. Minarets Press has evolved from a digital journalism class to an active news source providing new information and is a demonstration of our student’s ability to work with others, intricacy, creativity, and professionalism.
Originally Michael Vaughan, our current English teacher, taught a creative writing class that occasionally published articles to Sierra News, although it wasn’t an official news source. Social science teacher Kaitlin Morgan was asked to take the class and has transformed it into a journalism focused class. Morgan, now the advisor for Minarets Press, says that “Last year is when we actually came up with the name and sort of brand it to make it our own. We brainstormed, picked an editor and kind of went from there. It’s definitely grown since then, not only have we changed class periods but this year is definitely very strong with the staff members we have. I feel like we’re starting to build momentum and recognition”.
The classroom is full of productivity and teamwork as we work together to create articles every other week. Our team is diverse with an arrange of people involved in different activities, sports, and groups that provides an intricate environment and news gathering team. Firstly, our journalists decide what articles they would like to write about, often topics about events that will or has happened, or even something unique and important. Then it is up to the journalist to gather accurate information, interview individuals, and write a non-biased factual article. Students then share their articles with other students in the classroom to get advice on what they can improve and what their articles are lacking. Then the articles are read by our Editor-in-Chief to finalize edits and give helpful advice for our journalists to improve their articles. It is then the responsibility of the journalist to create a final version of the article and publish them onto our website. We also have our Photographer, Social Media Promoter and Graphic Designer who help contribute to organizing, creating, and improving articles and our site.
Although there is a lot behind the process of creating articles, students are dedicated and hard-working to provide accurate news for our students and community. “Every organization especially schools needs some way to publicize their events and some way to spread what’s going on at the school,” says Joseph Langley, Minarets Press journalist, and future Editor-in-Chief. “It’s very easy for high schoolers to get lost and sort of social life out of school so it’s hard for them to keep up with what’s going on at the school. Often times events just pop out of nowhere and one of the things we need to do is to get more kids aware of the journalism team and that it even exists, but it is there to give people the knowledge and light to those issues”. With different perspectives and involvements of students, Minarets Press is able to cover all areas of our high school with accuracy, but also provide interesting articles and covers. Our journalists have covered school and world events, reviews, student opinions, and more.
When it comes to having student roles and responsibilities, adviser Morgan said that “Something I’m trying to do is delegate roles out, like for Joseph Langley and Autumn Pecarovich who are going to be editors next year, putting more on them and having them lead the class. Especially now that we’ve established routines I feel comfortable letting a student take over control”. Joseph says that he likes the idea of giving more leadership roles to students. “Minarets really does a good job at giving students more leadership and teaching them how to be professional, out there in the world, how to do real jobs, have organizational and management skills that allow you to be successful in the real world. Even just the idea of Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor it allows us to learn how these organizations are run in the real world but in the real world on a smaller scale so we aren’t in that full pressure, we aren’t in the modern light but we’re able to feel the way these organizations work and get that experience, going into the interviewing process for jobs”
Something interesting about the class for Joseph is that it’s more of a team with the ability to impact people’s lives than just a class. “We have the ability if this gets more circulation and popularity to legitimately affect the student’s in a very positive way, and I think that’s something we can really harness. Using that to get points across in terms of telling people, such as the stress and management articles, we can legitimately influence people’s lives”.
The class also shows student’s creativity but also their ability to collaborate and work hard. “We’re good about being hands-on, but the thing I really like about this class is that it’s much more “Okay, you actually need to do something and people are going to see it and read it. I think it’s good for news literacy and that you actually see student’s styles of writing” adviser Morgan continued. “An article is not an essay: you have to be objective in everything so I feel like it’s good exposure to see the different writing styles. When students are reading or listening to the news it helps them to be much more critical of it. It definitely does take writing, I would be lying if I said it didn’t, but a lot of people get turned off by writing but it’s not the same as an essay. You know, it’s like two paragraphs and you stick to the facts”.
To those who are interested in journalism, Joseph says that “It’s a great opportunity to harness your writing and learn how to write, but also learn how to speak about important issues from an objective perspective and being able to do that is something high schools often overlook”. The articles cover an arrange of topics from covering events, reviews, advice, and other topics as well. “A lot of the articles are promotional articles, sometimes as seen with the behind the scenes series, as seen with the government shutdown article. We do however cover important issues that the student body should know about and there are different types of articles” Joseph emphasized. “That’s valuable, we need to be able to have a base in every single club because that way we can cover more accurately. If you’re in a club or activity that you want to be more public then joining the journalism class is the best way to do that, it’s the way you move forward and spread information the way you can get your voice heard and it’s a powerful position to hold."
Journalism isn’t for everyone, however, but those who enjoy writing, feel like there are things at Minarets or in the world that people should be aware of then Joseph recommends students take the opportunity to join it. “All of those things are different branches of journalism” Joseph continues, “We can all harness those in order to create a knowledgeable, unbiased, and meaningful informational team that can really change student’s lives. I think that’s the most important part”.