Notes on Youth Voices session

Convenors: Sara Stahlberg – Springfield Republican, youth editor

Stephen Silha – freelance writer, consultant on youth news

Participants: Andrea Frantz – Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Kay Berenson – Publisher, Recorder, Greenfield, MA

Amanda Dye – Umass Boston intern

Margo Gordon – University of Washington 

Andrea: Kids tend to go to the weather page when you give them a newspaper. Young people need voice in defining problem.

Kay: We made a mistake covering stories affecting youth without interviewing them. For example, we did a skatepark story. Realized we needed to interview kids who used the skatepark!

Amanda: Youth and minority voices are frequently omitted. I come from a poor background, so I know. 

Sara: ‘Unlisted’ is a weekly publication for teens. 1 adult editor. Roundtables. Photographs. 

Andrea: Students and Media Project. College student volunteers work with 8th graders dedicated to political issues. TV. Radio. Print. Problems were environmental issues. 

Stephen: Environmental issues are the most frequent cited by kids when you ask what “news” they are interested in.

Andrea: The year our 8th graders did a Photo documentary. This year: solution development. Homelessness. Found people living under bridge. 

Kay: We found high youth readership, even though kids don’t purchase. 

Tuned Out – book on why students tune out the news. “newspaper is like walking into college math class in middle of semester.”

Kids want more context around a story. (Web is natural environment to provide that.) 

Amanda, New Orleans. People don’t want to hear your story. Darfur. Rwanda. Post articles on MySpace. 

Stephen: Why not mine the social networking going on in online environments like MySpace to figure out what kids ARE interested in, and even cover some of those issues. (Beyond music and film.)

Discussion: Local newspapers could have teen pages. (restricted content) Difficult to work in schools generally because teachers and administrators censor.

Teen roundtables / youth roundtables are a great format for getting young voices in adult media

Dream of what media could do? 

“I was always inundated with Channel One in Florida.”

University Channel. Most younger people get news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—or Headlines on Hotmail, Yahoo.