Category: 2007

Welcome to February 2007 (Volume 1: Issue 2)
of Youth Media Reporter (YMR).
A look inside:
Collaboration has the power to link people across difference to work together. Even in our own organizations and media projects, we have opportunities to team up with our colleagues. But collaboration between universities—known to focus within the academic walls of research—and community partners—which deal with running programs and hands on activism—is quite a unique match. What can professionals from the youth media field gain from such a partnering?
This month’s theme focuses broadly on expanding the youth media field by creating new partnerships. The partnerships discussed in this issue have led to college students in field placements conducting program evaluations for non-profits, teaching opportunities at the college level for community partners, innovative implementation of media literacy work, and relationships with mainstream media outlets.
As Kathy O’Bryne, Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and Director of the Center for Community Learning explains in her article this month, “It is clear that bridging both the university and non-profit organizations (or professionals) with an alternative approach to collective learning and teaching is key to a future of community engagement, leadership and partnerships.”
In her article, O’Bryne draws attention to one of her courses that engage professionals in the classroom with students. The course offers a unique approach to program evaluation that can be useful to youth media organizations.
Renee Hobbs, Professor of Media Studies at Temple University and Director of Media Education Lab in this month’s interview states, “The youth media field can benefit from networking with students and faculty in colleges and universities who are interested in testing media theories in the ‘real world.’ Youth media professionals ought to reach out to the university more, as faculty members are interested in ways to engage students with practice and alternative, community-based, hands-on learning.”
In her interview, Hobbs makes a point that youth media literacy has not developed equally to that of media production technology – so there is a real need out there for innovative approaches to media literacy. She recommends that youth media professionals work with college students, attend and present at seminars and events on university campuses, and integrate media analysis and media production activities.
Kendra Hurley’s article, “The Youth Media NonProfit as Classroom” is re-launched to coincide with this month’s theme, for further views on professionalizing the youth media field, increasing the number of interested and equipped individuals entering the field, and establishing effective networks.
Katina Paron’s article offers key insights to working with mainstream media outlets. For seven weeks over this past summer, Children’s Press Line (CPL) worked for The Daily News. A teamwork of teens, interns, and practitioners produced articles each week for the Queens and Brooklyn boroughs.
Katina explains, “We were able to share kids’ quality of life problems to a wide audience that needs to know that kids are affected by the decisions that adults make.” For example, the column BackTalk “embodied a guiding principle of CPL – bringing authentic youth voices to adults in power. We do this by using the power of the media to publicly question policy officials on their decisions or their avoidance of an issue that directly affects young people.”
It is our hope that as a youth media professional, you will find the perspectives and learned outcomes in each article refreshing, enlightening, and resourceful. We are interested in hearing your thoughts and comments. Simply comment in the margin bar provided to the right of each article or contact us directly.
Warmly,
Ingrid Hu Dahl
Editor, YMR

Continue reading letter from the editor (volume 1: issue 2)

The European Youth Press is searching for young journalists writing for the next big issue of their online magazine. The magazine will focus on the media coverage of racism today and how minorities are treated on different places in Europe. If you are interested in contributing to the magazine by writing an article, producing a video, shooting photos or cutting a podcast just contact Anna Siitam.

For seven fabulous weeks last summer, Children’s PressLine (CPL), the youth journalism organization that I run, moved into the New York Daily News building to produce two pages a week for the newspaper’s weekly borough supplements, Brooklyn News and Queens News. We had needed a new, temporary home for our summer program and through a mixture of perseverance, insider help, and good timing, The Daily News told us we could move in, as long as we produced work for two of their borough sections.
The Daily News is the most read daily paper in New York City and the opportunity for our youth journalists to get their work in front of 2.8 million people every week was thrilling. We have covered some amazing stories in the past five years—the 2004 Republican and Democratic National Conventions, 2002 United Nations Special Session on the Rights of the Children, juvenile offenders on death row in Texas. And, we have partnered with some major news outlets—BBC World Service, CBS Radio, Boston Globe. However, I knew this project with The Daily News would be the apex of Children’s PressLine’s career to date.
While this was an exciting venture, it was not easy. In a new and temporary space with a high, weekly demand of articles, we had a few challenging hurdles to undergo as a group.
Redesigning the content
Our first hurdle was figuring out what the pages would look like. Normally, we produce one or two articles that total 1,500 words for New York Amsterdam News, one of our regular outlets. The page is text-heavy but we like to be able to give the interviewee the space to tell his or her full story. We also generally submit an illustration produced by a freelance illustrator that works with us pro bono.
This would never work for The Daily News. First of all, we only had 850 words to work with for the page and second, we needed photography not illustrations. The Daily News, after all, made its mark as “New York’s Picture Paper.”
We also needed a way to showcase our interviews with politicians. Understandably, 90% of CPL’s interviews are with kids, but 10% are with politicians. We wanted to make sure that politician interviews were part of the page every week.
So what did we do? First, we took on a new approach to our page layout and focused more on content than the word restrictions extended from The Daily News. As long as we could cover series topics, like education reform and homeless gay teens, we’d work with the word restrictions.
To manage the photography, we hired a photography intern. Aeden initially interviewed for an editorial position but as luck would have it she had photojournalism experience that we needed.
And to solve the politician question we invented a column called “BackTalk: kids speak, officials respond.” “BackTalk” is a Q-&-A style column, with the “Q” being a quality of life concern from a young person in the community and the “A” coming from a public policy official responsible for the issue. We planned to have each page to contain one or two stories and a “BackTalk” column.
Redesigning the program
We had a very short time to prepare the youth journalists and staff for this new venture. We knew that youth from our current program would be working with us this summer but that we’d probably have another 20 who were new to journalism. We had to redesign our standard summer program material to design a training that would prepare all the youth involved, despite their experience level, for the huge responsibility ahead.
So what did we do? We created a workshop that teen editors conducted with youth in Brooklyn and Queens, which allowed us to collect several voices and “quality of life” concerns from local teens all at once for the pieces in “BackTalk.” The key to these pages was interviewing local kids and using local statistics. We provided a service to the groups of young people by training them in advocacy journalism skills and providing contact information for their local politicians. An alumna of CPL had just graduated college and was available to coordinate the workshops and work with the teen editors that acted as facilitators. I would work together with the teen editors to schedule public official interviews integral to the column. We tested the workshop at our “New Members Training” in June and were able to iron out a lot of kinks early on.
Needing photography also meant doing off-site stories, which we often do more frequently in the summer. Unlike video or radio programs, we do our interviews over the phone and this is often necessary when we are working on national stories for The Online News Hour or Scripps Howard News Service. Because I’m a print girl by nature it was a constant struggle for me to remember that yes, we need pictures.
Staffing
Going into the summer, CPL had two full-time employees and two college interns. CPL has always worked with interns to act as interview schedulers, mentors and managers for the teams of youth journalists. We had to add staff for this project, but any extra money in our budget was being spent on the logistics of moving the computers and materials to the new space at The Daily News office.
So how did we get more staff with no money? We invested in more interns. Our two interns immediately got promotions. Chelsea (Brown University) became Brooklyn Bureau Chief and Megan (Pennsylvania State) was Queens Bureau Chief. They had the same page requirements but needed to come up with different stories.
I hired Lizette (Rutgers University) as the editorial assistant to both Bureau Chiefs. Now my interns had an intern. They were very excited. Collectively, these amazing interns were traveling nearly 5 hours each way to and from CPL and worked nearly 30 hours a week Monday through Thursday. Chelsea and Meghan were each responsible for scheduling interviews for 15 youth journalists who were on their teams. Another intern, Laura (New York University), worked with the youth on managing the editorial flow. Latesha, who was 8-months pregnant with her first child, was our transcriber thanks to an externship program at Inwood House, a social service organization that works with teen moms. Amanda (Wesleyan University) was the former CPL alumna who facilitated our Media and Community workshops. (Since then we’ve been able to hire Amanda as CPL’s Youth Coordinator.)
Where did these amazing interns come from?
I distributed our internship positions far and wide. In April, I had conducted 20 phone interviews with potential interns and it was clear in my phone conversations with Chelsea and Megan that they had had extensive experience at their college newspapers and understood the mission of CPL. Laura had worked with us the previous spring and we invited her to stay once we got the Daily News deal. Lizette and Aeden’s resumes came in at just the right time. Aeden had the photography experience we needed. And Lizette had time to give and an eagerness to learn – perfect skills for an editorial assistant. I sat down with every intern and walked them through all necessary steps and involved each as a fellow teammate. I took their questions as possible program flaws and we discussed as a group, paths to execution.
Learning lessons
Together, by the end of the summer we produced 17 news pages, which involved more than 40 articles, conducted interviews with 220 kids and 22 public officials, and held 10 Media and Community workshops with 157 young people at community centers throughout Brooklyn and Queens. In seven weeks we had increased our regular summer workload by 300%. Read two examples of these articles in PDF form from both Queens News and Brooklyn News.
I am extremely proud of the work we did last summer for The Daily News. Not only because the kids were smart, passionate, and excited about sinking their teeth into the project, but because as a team, the following key lessons were reinforced:
• Do not hide youth from the assignment. Because CPL works with so many news outlets we often get assignments that we pass to youth journalists, versus having youth come up with a story idea that we pitch to editors. We learned from this experience that we need to expose youth more to the bosses that give us the assignments. The youth recognized and experienced high demands and expectations from the Daily News editors, which was empowering. The high level of responsibility was transformational to witness as teens, adults, and interns collaborated to achieve every goal and deadline.
• Work as a team alongside youth. As a group, we were able to share the demands, the risks, and the hurdles, which made our collective experiences even more profound, rewarding, and powerful. As a bonus, we got journalists to step up to the plate when it came to post-production elements of stories, such as transcribing, editing, and writing introductions. As a result, we decided to incorporate these elements more strategically in our regular program.
• The program is flexible if we let it be. For so long, CPL used the same methodology and training methods in its work. There were hitches but we found the combination of peer mentoring, leadership, and civic engagement successful in our journalism program. The Daily News project forced us to change and expand this. It highlighted many of our organization’s strengths and complemented our current work.
Reaping Benefits
As an organization, CPL gained so much from our high-profile partnership. We went into the fall with a full bag of tricks to grab the attention of editors and empower local youth.
• Speak truth to power using “BackTalk.” I love “BackTalk” as a resource to make public officials accountable to youth concerns. Through the column we are able to share kids’ quality of life problems to a wide audience that needs to know that kids are affected by the decisions that adults make. The best part of “BackTalk” is that we get to make politicians and public officials accountable to their youngest constituents. This column embodies a guiding principle of CPL – bringing authentic youth voices to adults in power. We do this by using the power of the media to publicly question policy officials on their decisions or their avoidance of an issue that directly affects young people.
For example: Why aren’t there bike racks in Canarsie and teen community centers in Corona? Why are there so many sexual offenders in Fresh Meadows? Why can’t kids learn about condoms in school? It’s a perfect column and gratifying for youth to produce. “BackTalk” is now looking for a new home and those of us at CPL are excited by the thought of producing it once again.
• Create enhanced workshops and trainings. In the past, whenever we had been asked to hold a workshop with youth at conferences or in classrooms, we conduct trainings on how to interview. Now, especially from “BackTalk,” we have new Media and Community workshops to offer. These workshops provide a space for youth to express their concerns and help our journalists become stronger at identifying story leads.
• Street cred from the newspaper world. The day after our interview with NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein was published – it ran as a two-page spread that also featured local kids giving feedback about their school – we got an email from Arul Luis, the News Editor at The Daily News, which stated: “The Klein interview was coup, upstaging everyone else. My congratulations to your team.” Being able to share that email with our youth journalists, their parents, and our interns was one of the most satisfying moments I’ve had in my 12 years spent in youth media.
• Memories when time gets tough. Nearly every day at the Daily News offices, teen editor Jose from Bronx International High School would say to me: “Ms., you are in a good mood today, no?” “Ms., you smile a lot.” “Ms., you really love your job.” And nearly every time I’d tell him. “Juan, I’m happy because you are doing very important work and you are doing it well.” Just like other youth media programs, my work at CPL doesn’t always have this much fanfare so it is nice to have these amazing memories to keep me going.
The Daily News and CPL Today
Our agreement with The Daily News was for a summer project. We would have enjoyed another summer of collaboration, but we knew that the offices had been scheduled for other purposes. We were able to keep the door open wide enough to approach the paper about having us next summer. From the experience at The Daily News, our organization has certainly matured and grown exponentially in experience.
On our last day in The Daily News building, as I was packing up the newsroom, I received this note from one of our teen editors.
“Thank you for taking the time to make this one of the best summers I’ve had. You’ve taught me so much. Seeing my name in the newspaper has made me one of the happiest girls in the city. You make a difference in kids’ lives everyday. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to take part in that.” –Jasmin, 17
It doesn’t get much better than that does it? From our experiences last summer, I feel a lot more confident about approaching other mainstream publications and websites with similar partnerships. Our ability to cover New York as a local community has grown and our ability to provide enriching experiences that empower young people has strengthened. The project may have only lasted seven weeks but it provided decades of lessons.
Katina Paron is the Co-founder and Editorial/Program Director of Children’s PressLine in New York City. www.cplmedia.org

Continue reading Teamwork, Leadership, and New(s) Coverage: Children’s PressLine’s shares Lessons of a High-Profile Summer Partnership

Six years ago, Denise Gaberman took a graduate class at New York University on education and media. Associate professor of media ecology JoEllen Fisherkeller wanted her students not just to study the theory behind media education, but also to observe it. She sent them to community centers, schools, and nonprofits to see youth media making in action.
Under Fisherkeller’s tutelage, Gaberman began circulating among the numerous organizations in New York City that worked with teens on video projects. She interviewed the founder of Global Action Project, Diana Coryat, and spent 10 months interning as a teacher’s aid at Educational Video Center (EVC). She “journaled” about what she observed in the field, for school credit.
Gaberman enrolled in “Literacy Through Photography,” a weeklong seminar for teachers held through Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. There, Gaberman learned “to teach visual media in the classroom, specifically in a school—not an afterschool program,” she says. And how to create curricula “in an interesting way where all the lessons build on each other.”
After she left NYU, Gaberman brought what she’d learned to New York City schools. Working for a Board of Education program, she helped coordinate eighth graders at Middle School 80 in making a video about the cleanup of the nearby Bronx River. The project was ambitious. In science class, students tested the river’s water. In social studies, they learned its history. For their 90-minute “literacy block,” they interviewed and filmed local figures prominent in the river’s history. Gaberman met weekly with teachers to keep everyone on track. It finished a success.
Having access to all the youth media groups she’d gotten to know while studying with Fisherkeller, says Gaberman, “really helped me to understand how to do it.” And having spent a number of years reflecting on her experiences in a university classroom taught Gaberman how to adapt lessons used at youth media nonprofits for schools. “Researching how to work between schools and nonprofits really helped me out there,” says Gaberman.

Youth Media as a Subject of Study

Educators staffing youth media nonprofits have long understood their programs as potential “laboratories for schools”—sites that discover practices schools can use to get students making videos, pod casts, web pages, and other forms of multimedia. But figuring out how best to get their practices into schools, where they can reach more young people, has never been easy. School administrators are often wary of working with outside groups. Many require extensive convincing that media-making actually helps kids learn, or that it fits with the requisite “standards” that schools are scrambling to meet. Curricula used in afterschool programs—which often work with a handful of young people at a time and have the luxury of focusing nearly exclusively on media production—do not directly translate into a 50-minute classroom of 30-40 students, where media production is not the main subject. And extracurricular youth media programs don’t have the layers of bureaucracy and censorship that limit student expression the way schools do.
But over the past few years, as media-making technology has become cheaper and more ubiquitous, educators nationwide are becoming increasingly aware of the need for all young people to know how to make and analyze media. JoEllen Fisherkeller, part of a pioneering movement in higher education that organizes curricula around the theory and practice of youth media for media and education degree programs, is one of a small but growing number of professors who train current and future educators in media making. Schools across the country are turning to university programs like Fisherkeller’s to train teachers to bring media programs into the classroom.
“There’s a growing movement on the university level that youth media is a subject of study for people going into teaching,” explains Steven Goodman, executive director of EVC. EVC, the youth media nonprofit where Gaberman interned, now co-teaches an NYU class with Fisherkeller. EVC staff demonstrate how to get teens creating documentary video, while Fisherkeller provides the theory behind EVC’s methods.

Training Future and Currrent Teachers

Some of the university programs on youth media primarily train future teachers. Others, like the Duke University program Gaberman attended or Houston-based Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP), largely help current teachers and school administrators bring media making and analysis into the classroom. Many do a combination of “in-service and pre-service” teacher training, says Kathleen Tyner, assistant professor in the University of Texas Department of Radio, Television, and Film. The Texas university, says Tyner, has the distinction of being the first school in the country to require all prospective teachers (except those in math and science) to take a media education course. Many expect other education schools to soon follow suit.
Because education-program professors confer regularly with schools, future teachers, and youth media organizations, they can smooth the barriers that typically exist between nonprofits and classroom teachers. For instance, schools are often wary of partnering with outside groups, fearing they will “parachute” into the school for a short time and then disappear.
But universities already have relationships with schools as well as with instructors who need “professional development credits” to continue teaching. “The partnership with a university program enables the youth media organization to share what it learned with the faculty and students at a university, who has those interests,” and who can ultimately get their methods in classrooms, explains Renee Hobbs, associate professor at Temple University Department of Broadcasting Telecommunications and Mass Media.

Speaking the Language of Schools

David Considine, a professor at Appalachian State University Department of Media Studies and Instructional Technology, which offers a master’s degree in media literacy, agrees. “If you’re going to get to schools you need to speak the language of schools. You need to be aware how the state and national standards are already compatible with media production, and a lot of administrators aren’t even aware of that,” he says, noting that universities already speak the language of schools. Considine recommends that youth media groups wanting to partner with education schools present their curricula at education conferences where professors like himself can observe it.
But education professors warn that that it’s unrealistic for youth media groups to expect their curricula to be adopted as is. In her class at the University of Texas, Tyner chooses among various lessons and media from programs including EVC, the Portland Museum, Appalshop, and the Student Press Law Center, then fits them into curricula for “a 50-minute classroom with minimal equipment” and many students vying for attention, says Tyner. “I show [students] all the canned curriculum, but I want them to customize their curriculum to the needs of their students,” says Tyner.
At Temple University in Philadelphia, Renee Hobbs teaches a class similar to Fisherkeller’s that sends students into the community where they can intern at the local schools and programs involved with teaching young people media production. In class they explore the historical context of media education, race and class in media production, and how to evaluate youth media programs. Hobbs’ students have brought the lessons learned in her class and through their internships to other afterschool centers, community programs, as well as public and private schools.
Yes! (Youth Empowerment Services) has had several interns from Hobbs’ class. Education director Michael Sacks acknowledges these interns will most likely go on to spread Yes! methods in other education settings, but he does not consider working with them to be a form of teacher development for Yes! Rather, he views them as a much-needed resource to keep his program running smoothly, which is exactly what makes sending students into youth media organizations like his a “win-win” situation says Hobbs. These internships, says Hobbs, provide “a kind of cross-fertilization.”
Denise Gaberman herself recently left the Board of Education to train teachers in technology through the New York Institute of Technology. She says she’s convinced that educators who research the youth media field through university programs, like those where she studied and the one where she now works, may well be the answer for youth media groups wanting to spread their practices. “Ideas at educational schools are filtered into public schools” through graduating students, says Gaberman. “Those are the new leaders. Those are the new teachers.”
This article was originally launched in May 31, 2006 and can be found in YMR’s archives here.

Continue reading The Youth Media Nonprofit as Classroom

Young people from Africa and Asia with access to a video camera to participate in a special episode of the MediaSnackers vodcast (http://mediasnackers.com/focus/vodcasts/).
These youth will join together amongst a group of young people across the world to interview friends on their media consumption and creation habits – this will then be edited together
in a special episode of the vodcast…
If you are a young person or work for a youth organisation in Africa or Asia and would like to participate, please get in touch with D.K for more details.
DK
MediaSnackers Founder
+44 07787 535 737
mediasnackers.com

Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) seeks a dynamic and inventive instructor/teaching artist for Tribeca Teaches: Films in Motion, a school based program for NYC youth ages 10-13. The instructor will collaborate with the program team to create curriculum that encourages critical thinking and highlights for young people how they can use the mediums of film and video as tools of expression. The teaching artist will also work in the classroom to teach the rudiments of filmmaking. Candidates for the position should have two years experience in digital filmmaking as well as a minimum of 2 years experience working with middle school students. Experience working with underrepresented youth and knowledge of Final Cut Pro editing is an asset. Working artists are encouraged to apply.
Tribeca Teaches: Films in Motion is a new TFI program that will launch in spring 2007. This pilot project will bring TFI-developed curriculum to middle school classrooms in conjunction with hands-on filmmaking tutorials, and present screenings of Tribeca Film Festival Films to Bronx Preparatory Charter School in the South Bronx. At its foundation, Tribeca Teaches aims to utilize media to help students think critically about ideas of identity, community and tolerance. A total of 90 middle school students will participate and create a collaborative short film.
Dates of employment
March – April 2007; 10 hours a week.
Salary Range
Daily rate commensurate with experience.
Please submit a resume and any relevant work samples by February 25, 2007 to:
Leslie Norville
Special Projects Manager
Tribeca Film Institute
375 Greenwich St.
New York, NY 10013
Fax: (212) 965-4658
lnorville@tribecafilminstitute.org
Only those selected for an interview will be contacted. No phone calls please.
Please visit www.tribecafilminstitute.org for more information about Tribeca Film Institute.

Go to www.indykids.net to download the paper, find out how to get copies, and subscribe.
This issue features articles on the war in Iraq, Lieutenant Watada who refused to be deployed to Iraq, climate change, hip hop around the world, kids playing chess, a feature on the Native American struggle for land, a student’s bilingual German-English essay, puzzles and more!
Visit:
http://www.indykids.net/teachers/index.html
for the Teacher’s Guide that accompanies the new issue.
Pick up copies of the new issue in New York City at:
• Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St (between Stanton & Rivington), Manhattan
• Revolution Bookstore, 9 W. 19th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues), Manhattan
IndyKids
P.O. Box 1417
New York, NY 10276
Phone: 212-592-0116
Email: indykids@indymedia.org
Web: www.indykids.net

Books on youth culture are the new bestsellers as adults attempt to understand the conflicts and influences confronting today’s kids. But social critics claim that ‘youth profiling’ and juvenile navel-gazing exploits youngsters and is sending the wrong messages. Authors debate the pros and cons.
Abby Ellin, author, Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs In on Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can’t) Help
Alissa Quart, author, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers; Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child
Dave Marcus, author, What it Takes to Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get Into Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out
Lauren Sandler, author, Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement
Maia Szalavitz, author, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts KidsCatherine Orenstein, culture critic; author, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked (moderator)
Housing Works Book Café
126 Crosby Street
(between Houston and Prince Streets)
Thursday, March 29
7:00 to 8:30 pm

The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights is a progressive, non-partisan campaign connecting people and groups concerned about the rollback of their rights in the federal courts including disability rights, racial justice, womens rights, the rights of workers, immigrants, the aging and others. The Campaign launched, KidsSpeakout, a writing contest for children and teenagers, to get them talking about the value of diversity. The topic is, “Why is diversity important in our public schools?” Submissions for the contest are due by March 30, 2007.
Students across America can participate to receive cash prizes. There is a quote (or short answer) contest for students under 12, and an essay contest for young people ages 12 through 17. For more information about the contest, including how young people can submit a quote or essay, and additional materials, please visit, www.rollbackcampaign.org.

Celebrating equitable approaches in youth media that focus on deconstructing stereotypes, sexism, racism, and homophobia. Highlights from the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, Girls, Inc. New York City, Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund, Women’s Leadership program at Snyder High School, and Dowtown, an undergraduate service learning course set to eradicate stereotypes in Trenton, NJ.