Over the past year, I’ve watched as a blank newspaper website became slowly filled with articles from a variety of students. In fact, this article will fill the final empty spot in our menus. I’ve watched the site’s viewership grow from 80 viewers per month, to 200, to an eventual high of over 600.
We’ve started an Instagram page, worked hard with marketing, and tried to cover as many groups across the school as possible. Six of our stories have won awards.
I myself have grown too. I’ve learned more about writing this year, but also about people; the everyday people who walk the halls here at MCHS. There are more thoughts in my head now than there were last year.
It was just over a year ago when my dad, an English teacher at the high school, told me that a journalism class would be offered to students for the 2024-25 school year. He thought it would be a good way to work on my creative – that is to say, not essays – writing. I signed up.
On the first day of class, there were perhaps ten students. Seven lasted the semester. I was a bit dubious in regards to the class – small size, very quiet – but I stayed.
After spending a month or so preparing for our first publication, we launched the Press website in late September, finally continuing the legacy of previous MCHS student newspapers such as the Mohawk Press and the Tom Tom.
My first big stories came in November with the election. Mrs. Scholl, our advisor, was practically begging someone to cover the election. I finally agreed to it, if reluctantly.
This is when I think I fell in love with journalism. Through my work with that article, I realized while writing that article that a lack of media proficiency is a serious deficit many teenagers (including myself, at the time), or even Americans, face. I realized that journalism could help me become a better member of society.
For the first time, I began to make reading national news from reputable sources a priority. It became essential for me to know that what I was reading was true, for without information, people are powerless.
Information. Knowledge. Intelligence. However you name it, it’s the cornerstone of an empowered society. It’s one of the rights the Bill of Rights guarantees us: freedom of the press. We have the right to publish our ideas, and others have the right to read them. Being informed isn’t easy, but it is absolutely essential to a functional society.
In a world where misinformation is rampant and sensationalism sells, good journalism tends to hide just out of sight. It is essential that we – high schoolers, the future leaders of America – look for it.
The value of information is great. The privilege of information is not ubiquitous. Take advantage of it. Increase it.
I opted to take journalism for a second semester, during which I finished my first award-winning story, American Sports’ Endangered Species. While I have drafts of that article dating back to November, I wrote and edited the bulk of the story during late night Follies rehearsals in February. It was what I kept coming back to, despite mountains of other homework. It was the one thing that I could tune out the distractions for.
Even now, I’m writing from the back of a bus coming home from a soccer game. I’m tired, and my playlist has long since ended, but this article has me captivated.
I have found a passion in journalism this year. I love checking the website viewership, to see what stories are bringing in what number of views. I love sending long emails to Mrs. Scholl on ideas for how to market the website or upgrade it. I love hanging up posters during my third-period study hall, trying to decide which locations will bring in the most page views.
I now address my fellow students directly. If you do not have a period of the day that you look forward to, whose homework you find genuinely interesting, find a way to incorporate one. It doesn’t have to be an elective – maybe it’s history that you find interesting, or physics.
Some people love their music classes. Some are fascinated by foreign languages and cultures. For others, their passion is buried a little deeper. Maybe they want to be creative, or feel that they’re making a difference.
Whatever your passion is, I encourage you to find a way to live it every day, either at school or at home. Find something to keep you up at night.
Days in which I write are better than days in which I don’t, and I wish I had learned that sooner.
