Through the past year, student journalists everywhere have been faced with the problems that have risen due to COVID-19. These problems range from having trouble telling the story because of the pandemic, to an overall uncreative period of time. Journalism has become more important now than ever before. We bring a voice to the voiceless; we have continued to keep the community together while all of us have had to be apart. We were able to report on topics even while we have been out of school.

We have even faced a new era of journalism. In a pandemic, we have more responsibility than ever before. In a world where so little seems positive, we must bring the community together and talk about the happenings within the district. If we don’t end up talking about them, then who will?
While many student journalists around the world deal with censorship, we have been so thankful that within the district we haven’t faced censorship. Even though we have not faced this ourselves, we know that many other student journalists have. We continue to fight for journalism censorship to be lifted by being involved in the New Voices movement. The program sheds light on those who have been censored and they stick up for those who have been. We, as the staff, continue to stick up for our fellow journalists who face this problem. 

We have a job we must do and a great responsibility to live up to. We allow voices to be heard that would have never gotten the platform to have that voice. That is a power unlike any other. Every voice is important and should be heard; we as journalists should carry out our mission to include as many diverse voices in our stories as possible. Younger voices are oftentimes looked down on, and we should bring those voices to the light because younger people have a fresh perspective to bring to the table.
From an outsider’s perspective, our job may seem easy, but it is way more than what everyone thinks it is. We not only have to report on the actual news, but we learn so much about ourselves, as well as media literacy and technology literacy. These skills help us become better people and also give awareness to source credibility. As journalists, it allows us to see the fake news that circles around the internet.

Being wary of fake news is so important, especially while we are in the middle of a pandemic. Social media has taken over the lives of many around the world, and people have relied on it as their main source of information for what is going on in the world. But, more often than not, social media spreads news that has no factual backing and information attached to it. The sad truth is that many people believe these stories, without looking further into the topic. This can cause mass panic among a community, but our job as journalists is to truly do our research before we put anything out there to stay true to our goals.
As student journalists, we begin to learn more about ourselves as well as what it means to work with a team. These are skills that we not only use now, but will end up using in the future that will help develop our life skills needed in everyday life.

We as student journalists work as a huge team to produce content every single month. Whether it be for our digital newspaper or our print, we all work together to create reliable news. This comes with a lot of responsibility and reliance on others. We have many positions within the publications that take on big jobs. Some of these jobs include Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor and section editors. No matter what position a person would step into, they will learn many skills. Leadership skills, being personable, working with others and many other skills will be learned just within those leadership positions. Staff writers also learn most of these skills that they continue to use every single day. No matter what position one may hold, we all work within each other, rely on each other and reach goals as a team.
While we are high school students, what many of us learn as student journalists helps within many of the other classes and activities that we may be involved in. We learn how to manage our time, as many of us have many different things going on in our everyday lives. We also learn to become better students because of the time management skills that we learn and then adapt to in our lives. Also, many of us learn how to work with others and what it truly means to be a leader, which is such an important skill set to have. 

We also learn technology literacy through everything else. Learning how to master different programs like Adobe products, as well as all the Google applications, are heavily worked on as journalists. We also cover all of our events that happen on campus like homecoming and sporting events, so many of us learn what it means to be a photographer. But these are only half of the battle, we most importantly learn what it means to write as a journalist.
All in all, journalists do so much more than anyone could ever imagine. If you have ever thought about becoming a journalist, go out there and do it! You will learn so much about yourself and others. Take time to appreciate all that journalism has to offer and what journalists go through to get the real news out there.