Notes from Highlander session about bridging the relationships between high school students and professional journalists

Bridging the relationships between high school students and professional journalists

Session at Thought Leader Summit at Highlander (9/24/11)

Notes

• Put together proposal to present to professional educational organizations / education writers associations to promote education coverage
  • Partnerships between professional in an area and high school students
  • Can we get funding for laid-off education reporters to mentor HS students?
  • Objectives
    • Grant for former ed reporters to be mentors
    • Partnerships between professional media sites/papers and those high school students. Grant would be to help fund mentorships AND to promote match-making between students, mentors, and local papers/news orgs.
    • Students as education reporters gives a possible first experience in covering a beat, one that students are living and are interested in.
    • Possible locations to build program (locations have all needed components – youth media orgs, community news sites, etc.)
      • Austin, SF, Chicago, Seattle
      • Could also possibly get interest from rural sites, with small newspaper in need of content.
      • Steps in developing program
        • Write up mini-proposal (Adam will get done by mid-October)
        • Think about partners, send draft proposal, convene conference call
        • Info we need to get
          • Stats of ed reporting/ed reporter layoffs/need in news orgs for this project (Marisa is working on this)
          • Questions to continue to ponder: What will this be? What kind of education coverage (watchdog, human interest, etc.)? What is student’s role? What will be prouced and how will it be produced?
          • Numbers/trends in student journalism (Adam will try to find this information).
          • Possible purposes
            • Filling a hold in missing ed coverage
            • Providing students opportunity to express themselves
            • Career prep/exploration
            • Civic/media/news literacy
            • Community organizing/empowerment purposes
            • Community engagement
            • Possible partners
              • Student journalism areas
                • Student Press Law Center
                • Journalism Education Association
                • National Scholastic Press Association
                • Columbia Scholastic Press Association
                • Quill & Scroll
• Pro media area
  • American Society of News Editors
  • Education Writers Association
  • Radio and Television Digital News Association
• Education groups
  • IDEA?
  • Other ed groups?
• Any possible academic partnerships?
• Possible funders
  • McCormick
  • Ford
  • Patterson
  • Gates (especially with tech focus?; person to talk to is Vicki Phillips)
  • Knight
  • Public Insight Network
  • Kellogg (especially if there is a youth leadership part)
  • Reynolds