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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Students Take a Crack at News Biz

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
      Skyrocketing gas prices was the top story, but putting together a newspaper turned into the breaking news of the day.
    "It was really, really stressful. Teamwork had to be the best part of the whole thing. At the beginning, we were working with people we didn't know and had to" get to know in only a few days to produce an eight-page newspaper, said April Thompson, who is 16 and an incoming junior at Mountainair High School.
    April participated in the 2008 New Mexico Press Association High School Journalism Workshop, an annual three-day journalism event sponsored in part by the Telegraph. The workshop was attended this year by 16 students from high schools all over the state.
    The students had 48 hours to write, photograph, design, edit and assemble into a broadsheet color format a newspaper called The Future Press, with a top story of "Gas Prices Have Teens Rethinking Transportation Plans."
    The workshop was held in early June on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.
    April received an award on the last day as "Best Team Player," and each student received an award saying he or she had successfully completed the workshop.
    Signature Offset in Las Cruces printed 500 copies of the paper for free, said Dana Bowley, executive director of New Mexico Press Association, who has been in the newspaper business for 30 years.
    "There are a number of people who have attended the workshop and who then go on to careers in journalism," Bowley said.
    Three instructors taught students according to their specialties, including Pat Graff from La Cueva High School, who taught reporting techniques and has instructed at the workshop for 20 years; Connie Blue from Southwest Secondary Learning Center, who taught photography techniques and has instructed at the workshop for 10 years; and Mary Massey from Capital High School, who taught the students editing techniques.
    During the workshop, professional speakers also spoke with the students about their experiences in journalism.
    "She said it was better to ask forgiveness than permission" or to take the photo first and ask questions later, April said of one guest speaker's advice. April said she used that advice when photographing some diners at a Las Cruces restaurant.
    "Some people got excited and said we're going to be famous" when we told them we were working on a newspaper, April said.
    Mountainair High School teacher Douglas Moser plans to teach a journalism class at the high school this fall. He sat in on some of the workshop in Las Cruces.
    "Everyone was extremely impressed by what they were allowed to accomplish in three days," Moser said.
    Moser plans to produce a student-created newspaper perhaps several times during the fall class.
    The workshop is supported by a foundation set up for the purpose of journalism education through the press association, Bowley said.
    For more information about the workshop and foundation, call 275-1377.
   

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