Community Journalism for Youth

Overview While many newspapers have embraced the concept of "community journalism" and "reverse publishing" most have shied away from allowing youth to participate. Denver Newspaper Agency took on the challenge of building a kid-friendly, web-safe community journalism site for 8 – 13 year-olds to engage our younger readers and provide opportunities for authentic writing and an online voice.

Background and rationale Three things supported the decision to offer a website/newspaper for 8 – 13 year olds. A recent NAA report giving hard statistical data that newspaper content for teens, by teens and relating to teens strongly bolsters a newspaper’s ability to attract young readers and keep them as they age. Reaching younger readers helps to create a newspaper reading habit before that critical age. The study determined: 75 percent of the respondents who read newspaper content for teens when they were 13 to 17 years old are currently reading their local paper at least once a week. Content specifically written for and about teens is the strongest driver of teen section reading.

Background and rationale (cont.) Personal connections are a strong secondary attraction, including writing for the section or being mentioned in an article, or knowing others who were similarly involved. A similarly strong connection between teen sections and later use of the newspaper’s Web site. Involvement in the Council on 21 st Century Learning Emphasis on what students need to succeed in the 21 st Century. Communication and collaboration skills are one of the three main areas. Students need to contribute as well as obtain information and Web 2.0 is an ideal way. Denver ranks 6 th in the U.S. in Internet use.

Rationale for web platform choice The YourHub.com platform is used to produce 47 websites and 18 print products for the Denver Metro area. Readers age 14 and up can post to the site. Adapting that platform for 8 – 13 year olds had several advantages: It had the look and feel of a real newspaper site. Our younger readers would become familiar with the site and how to use it, providing for a transition later to reading YourHub.com. When they became 14, they could graduate to writing for YourHub.com.

Development – Time Line Sept. – Oct Met with YourHub.com editor to obtain support. Researched Child Online Protection Act (COPA) requirements for 13 years-old and under. Met with software developers at Indigio Group, Inc. to see if YourHub.com platform could be reprogrammed to be compliant with COPA.  Parental permission  Personal information not displayed  Parents can ask to have content removed  Ad content controlled within the site  Anyone can view the site, but only registered users can post, rate or comment on the site.

Development – Time Line November, 2006 Announced new website to a focus group of current Youth Reporters (about 40), asked for suggestions for a name and took a vote for the final name: YourHub.com/Next Gen. Dec – Jan Indigio completed reprogramming. Lawyer reviewed permission form. Feb Jill Armstrong, site manager, trained in use of site.

Development – Time Line March, 2007 Site is launched at a training for current youth reporters. 25 youth attend the training and begin posting to the site. April – May, s sent to classroom teachers announcing site and asking for comments. Discovered several school districts were blocking the site as a social networking site. Made calls and visits to school districts to get site unblocked.

Development – Time Line June, 2007 Marketed Youth Journalism Day for 50 youth, held concurrently with Summer Teacher Conference. Available space filled in 1 week. July, 2007 Youth Journalism Day. Youth trained by YourHub.com and Rocky Mountain News staff. Reporters talked about their experience and showed their postings to 250 teachers in attendance at the Teacher’s Conference.

Development – Time Line August, 2007 YourHub.com/NextGen Youth Reporter Training at the Arvada Center. Youth wrote stories about a play, a history museum and a special handicapped accessible playground. September, 2007 Announcements to classroom teachers about YourHub.com/NextGen and opportunities for students to participate.

Development – Contributions Software development costs were approximately $8,000. This was covered by The Denver Newspaper Agency (DNA). Indigio Group trained the site manger and helped train the initial group of reporters. YourHub.com and The Rocky Mountain News staff help with ongoing training of youth reporters, as well as DNA staff. Ongoing hosting and training costs are covered by the DNA.

Marketing Advertised for reporters in “Colorado Kids” and “The Mini Page” in spring, 2007 (Advertising now for next year) Received 43 applications. All were offered positions and accepted.

Marketing Article about YourHub.com/ NextGen written by a youth reporter in the May 29th issue of “Colorado Kids.”

Youth Journalism Day The theme for our annual Summer Teacher Conference was “Blazing Trails into the 21 st Century.” At the same time and place, we held a Youth Journalism Day to train youth reporters. Information was included in the brochure mailed out to 30,000 teachers.. Several teachers opted to enroll their children.

There was a $50 fee for this day, since it included two meals, T- shirts and materials. This ad ran twice. The workshop maximum of 50 participants was reached in one week and almost 30 people were put on a waiting list.

YourHub.com/NextGen Anyone can view the site, but only registered users can actively participate in the site. Registered users are limited to 4 th -8 th grade Colorado students (ages 8-13). Users post stories, photographs, reviews, blogs and calendar events. Users also rate stories written by other reporters and post comments. This interactivity is very important in engaging them in the site. Site manager chooses stories and blogs to be featured on the home page.

YourHub.com/NextGen Users respond to a weekly poll on a current topic. Users follow web links for more information on selected topics from the print product. The site manager reviews content, but users can also report inappropriate content or comments by clicking on a link next to each story and comment. Parents are also asked to review material and can ask for postings to be removed.

Each registered user must first submit a parental permission form.

Stories can be viewed by date or by category. There are a number of categories and reporters can suggest additional categories

Reporters can post multiple photographs to go with their stories and can create a profile. The profile is checked to make sure it doesn’t include identifying information.

Reporters also enjoy blogging and frequently write reviews of books, movies, toys and game.

Students can comment on each others stories and report objectionable comments. So far, students are being very careful in what they post, but this is a safety net.

Reverse-publishing “Colorado Kids” appears in the Tuesday Denver Post. It features content written by youth reporters every other week. A “NextGen” column appears in selected issues of the YourHub.com print product each week. Next year, we plan to include writing by younger reporters in the syndicated feature “The Mini Page” (Wednesday Rocky Mountain News)

Two stories originally posted on YourHub.com/ NextGen

Summer Youth Journalism Day Summer Youth Journalism Day trained future reporters and challenged the participants to product web content in one day. Opened with a presentation by the publisher and editor of the Rocky Mountain News and an overview by a reporter. Sessions on interviewing, writing news stories, blogs and reviews.

Agenda for Youth Journalism Day Students were given assignments: man-on-the street interviews, reviewing an art show, covering the teacher conference. They also took photographs. Went into a computer lab and posted their stories and photos to the website. Ended the day with a demonstration to the 250 teachers at the Teacher’s Conference. One student said “This is the best day of my life.”

Post-conference Articles appeared in the Rocky Mountain News, three issues of YourHub.com, and the Colorado Press Association about Youth Journalism Day and YourHub.com/NextGen.

Column by the editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, printed in the August 4 issue.

Complete article at: General/Blog~ aspx One of three articles about Youth Journalism Day posted at YourHub.com

Complete article at: General/Blog~ aspx This article was also featured in the print Lakewood edition of YourHub.c om

Youth Journalism Day was featured in the August, 2007 issue of Colorado Editor, the official publication of the Colorado Press Association.

Ongoing Training Free Youth Reporter Trainings offered every few months. Pulitzer-prize winning Rocky Mountain News photographers presented a slide show and gave tips Offside hands-on photography workshop where youth received an overview, then took photos which we critiqued Presentations to classrooms on using YourHub.com/NextGen

Ongoing Training High School Journalism Day is held every April at the University of Denver. Professionals from the Rocky Mountain News and CBS4 present on a wide variety of topics. Normally just for high school, we invite our 8 th grade reporters to attend on a scholarship. This year, 4 reporters attended.

One page tip sheet for youth reporters on writing, photography and interviewing. Reporters receive a reporter notebook to use for notes. We also provide handouts with story guidelines and writing tips.

Ongoing Marketing

Recruitment Ad for next year Senior Youth Reporters receive products to review and story assignments.

Results This site was formally launched as of July 27, As of May 13, 2008, youth reporters had posted 716 stories, reviews and blogs. New items are posted almost every day. There are 208 registered users, compared with approximately 40 youth reporters before starting YourHub.com/NextGen.

Evaluation & Results Our goal of transitioning reporters is working. We graduated two reporters in 2007 from YourHub.com/NextGen to YourHub.com. They are now actively posting to YourHub.com and have been published several times. One is a featured blogger. Both talk about how meaningful their experiences were as youth reporters and helped train this year’s staff. This spring we will graduate eight more.

Future Plans Democratic National Convention We will have credentials for three reporters, mentors and a teacher. In addition, YourHub.com/NextGen reporters will cover events outside the Pepsi Center to post to YourHub.com/NextGen. We will reverse-publish a complete print issue of YourHub.com on Aug. 28. A second Youth Journalism Day this June At our building to involve more professional journalists To expand to 100 participants.

Go to for a copy of this PowerPointwww.PostNewsEducation.com/NAA