YOUTH PERSPECTIVES
Is the future of journalism constructive?
We asked Mississippi’s youngest journalists for their take.
Recruiting is a challenge for media outlets, especially in small towns and rural places. Would a constructive approach make the field of journalism more attractive?
In interactive sessions for the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association’s Spring 2024 Conference, nearly three out of four students said they were more interested in journalism as a potential career after hearing about the idea. That represents feedback from a total of 24 students who completed a wrap-up survey.
Are you interested in a career in journalism?
How does learning about Constructive Journalism change your interest level in journalism as a career?
Do you think you will stay in Mississippi as you start your career?
“I want to engage in my community and talk about things that aren’t discussed.”
— Newspaper social media manager and writer, Madison Central High School, Madison, MS
Student journalists: What motivates them in their work today
What do teens think about Constructive Journalism?
“I think it’s unrealistic.”
“I love it!”
“I think it really shapes the future of how people interact with sensitive subjects.”
“I believe it’s a good idea, but I believe we shouldn’t sugarcoat news. We need to use constructive criticism. News is hard and people are just going to have to get over that.”
“It’s definitely a topic that should be talked about more.
“I think it could lead to a better journalism environment for both the public and the people writing.”
High-school journalists see the inherent tension:
To reconcile the hard truths of current events with a purpose of preserving hope.
They also liken the challenge to a familiar idea from the classroom: Giving and taking constructive criticism.
“If all you see is negative information, then you’re not going to want to keep getting information,” said Violet Daniels, a staff writer for the Madison Central Uproar.
Students debated the role of journalism in prompting people to respond and get involved when something needs to be changed in society.
“I think the news has to be tough,” said Dalton Lopez, a yearbook and social-media staff member at Hernando High School. “People are dying in Ukraine. People are dying in Gaza. You have to tell that to everybody. You can't just sugarcoat it, because then nobody's going to believe you or nobody's going to advocate.”
Daniels said that a constructive mindset could help journalists keep their audience engaged in hard stories and help prevent people from tuning out.
“I think ‘constructive’ is what you’re setting out to do, like your viewpoint,” she said.
Camden Flowers, editor-in-chief at Brandon High School’s The Pawprint, said her school newspaper covered the death of a classmate by focusing on his story, his faith and how peers came together in the process of grieving.
“We found that was more of what people wanted to read, rather than the fluffy Valentine’s Day history story we might have done,” she said.
Students debate the merits of a constructive approach
How can high school media outlets get more engagement?
Journalists in student media have two key advantages over professional journalists: They already know their audience very well, and they don’t have to worry about revenue and job security.
Still, they share a common challenge: How to connect with their audience and earn their attention.
For Alfeenah Prather, editorials director for The Pony Express at Center Hill High School, it requires hands-on promotion: “I have to send my stories to people: ‘Can you read this? Can you comment on it? And can you like it and share it on Instagram?’”
Seventh-grader Autumn Branch said graphic-design elements are an important part of the reporting strategy for student media at Hernando Middle School.
“Their attention spans are really, really short, so you have to find ways to grab their attention and hold it,” she said. “It’s a difficult thing to do.”
Students said the stories that get talked about the most are either the funny ones, or the ones that most closely related to their lives. Stories about popular culture or current events seemed to fall flat. Opportunities to write about more critical or controversial topics often didn’t get past advisors or school administrators.
Senior B.L. Harewood, a former newspaper editor at Moss Point High School, said his most talked-about story focused on a disconnect between a new principal’s goals and the students’ perspective.
“It got a lot of buzz. People were talking about it — so much so that, not long after we were able to get the publication out, they censored that specific paper,” Harewood said.
“I lost that outlet and that voice. But people talking about that allowed me to gain more experience, to gain that support and confidence to continue doing something that I feel is important and beneficial — and also something that I want to make a career out of one day.”
Harewood said he saw value in the connection aspect of Constructive Journalism, in prompting journalists to engage differently with the people around them.
“It’s about just being able to come together, and then reporting on stories that we know matter to them, because we have built that bond and that connection,” he said. “Then we’re not necessarily pushing random agendas. We’re zeroing in on something that matters to those around you.”
Daniels said her student-media staff were rethinking their strategy for deciding what stories to write.
“An idea we had was on our brainstorming day, instead of just sitting up in our classroom talking about what we think people want to hear, going out during lunch and asking people, ‘What do you want us to report on?’” she said. “I think that could help us with getting people engaged.”
Students weigh how to engage their peer audience
How are student journalists using the media themselves?
Day to day, students get the news primarily from the social-media channels where they spend time — namely TikTok.
Jamyrie Tolbert, entertainment and arts-and-culture director at Center Hill High School, said platforms like TikTok directly connect teens with people on the ground when something important is happening.
“I like consuming news from social media, because I feel like it’s more firsthand accounts, rather than other news reporters telling the story,” she said. “It’s more like people telling their own story their own way.”
Emily Ireland, a senior copy editor for The Revelation at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Jackson, said that short-video stories reported from the ground seem more valid to her and her peers when multiple content creators are sharing the same news.
“If we see a bunch of TikToks of it, we think it’s true,” she said.
Students also pointed to the role of parents and teachers in helping them stay informed. Several have schoolwide news broadcasts that integrate current events into their days.
If they’re interested, they’ll go online to research for themselves and find out what happened.
“I only look up the news when there’s a tragedy, as bad as that sounds,” Prather said. “If I want to know more about something, I’m going to do a real deep dive on something bad that happened in the world. Not general news.”
How students get the news and discern what’s true
Student journalists from South Panola High School celebrate their MSPA awards.
ABOUT THIS EVENT
Constructive Journalism was among breakout-session topics at the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association’s annual spring conference in April 2024.
Hosted by the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media, the event brought together more than 400 high-school students representing 24 schools from across the state. In addition to a keynote speech by Pulitzer Prize-winning Mississippi journalist Anna Wolfe, students attended sessions by faculty members, professionals and fellow students on topics ranging from social media to censorship.
The audience for sessions on Constructive Journalism was not random, in that most of the students demonstrated interest by choosing the session from among 33 different options.
Format and production notes
Inspired by the “Flipping the Script” concept, we set up this session to flip the panel-of-experts format and put teens in the experts’ seat. We had an opportunity to repeat the session with two different groups of students.
This format would be replicable to produce a TV news segment on deadline on any topic.
Here’s how the 50-minute session was structured:
Overview of Constructive Journalism (20 min.) — We shared the broad idea around the question “Can journalism bring people together?” We talked about how the approach might be different from what they are learning, and offered four examples of how journalists are using the method.
Table Talk (10 min.) — We gave students questions about how they get the news and decide what sources to trust, and asked them to discuss at their tables. We then asked each table to nominate one person to be part of the panel of experts.
Panel of Experts (15 min.) — The presenter acted as moderator to engage the students on questions around the role of journalism, their thoughts on the constructive approach and how they might use the ideas in their school media.
Quick-Take Survey (5 min.) — We asked students to use their phones to fill out a QR-code survey at the end.
Team needed: (2) Presenter/facilitator and video producer
Equipment: 2-camera setup (wide and close); shotgun microphone in front of panelists
Tips to replicate this format in everyday reporting:
Piggyback on gatherings that are already happening.
Tell people ahead of time that a gathering will be documented and why.
Select fewer participants, so that video and audio setups can be simpler.
Incorporate a QR-code survey to also hear from the full group.