How I Used Engagement Journalism to Serve NYC’s Students

In the engagement program at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, we are taught that journalism is a service and that we should be mindful of the needs of our audience and the communities we cover. We’re taught to measure the value of our journalism through its impact.

At the beginning of the program, students are tasked with picking a “community” to work with and serve with our journalism. I picked the student population of New York City’s public schools, so I’ve been aiming to serve this community ever since. For the past year-and-a-half, I’ve used a listen-first approach to serve the student population of New York City. I’ve tried a bunch, failed a bunch and learned a bunch. I even succeeded. Here’s a little bit about my journey and what I learned:

I made the decision to cover student issues before moving to New York City, when I was still working as a middle school educator in Buffalo. I learned a lot through that experience: most importantly that I love working with and learning from young people. But there were several times where my students vocalized how certain aspects of their school and school system weren’t working for them. Most of the time, they were making really good points, so it was very challenging to explain why we had to push forward with the status quo. The honest answer usually would have been that I was just following instructions.

I think that a lot of the issues that my students were experiencing stemmed from the fact that students have nearly no say in the kind of education they receive. Student perspectives aren’t included in decisions about their education.

So I came to the engagement program with the goal of helping build student power by getting students’ voices and perspectives into the news. Until there are systems in place that allow students of all ages to participate directly in the decision-making process of our education system, I believe that one of the best ways to improve the school system for students and their needs is to use journalism to hold the system accountable to its duty of serving student needs.

I began by using traditional reporting as a means to serve the student population. Not only are student perspectives often left out of the decision-making process for education policy, but they are often also left out of traditional education reporting. This is a failure committed by a lot of education journalists. When we leave student perspectives out of the news, we fail to hold the education system accountable to serving student needs. And if the school system isn’t working for students — the folks who the system is for — it isn’t working for anyone.

So, I’ve kept myself busy trying to center student perspectives in my education reporting. I’ve covered topics including mental healthcare access in schools, school transportation barriers, school safety, school funding and more. You can check out some of my reporting in my portfolio.

But through all my reporting, I realized I wouldn’t be able to fully uplift student perspectives on my own. As an independent, adult reporter, I was still reporting about the community I was trying to serve instead of reporting with them, as we’ve learned to strive for as engagement journalism students. Including the communities you are writing about in the reporting process makes your journalism stronger. But there are many challenges that come with collaborating with young people on journalism projects. Most prominently, many students in NYC don’t have access to journalism education. Only 27% of NYC high schools have student newspapers, leaving 73% of schools without student newspapers, according to a study conducted by Baruch College. I realized that if I wanted to report with younger students, I would need to find a way to equip them with the tools and resources they need to learn the ropes of journalism and build the confidence it takes to ask tough questions.

So, with the help of its three founding members, Rilan (8th grade), Amden (9th grade) and Alex (9th grade), I created Report Card: NYC’s student powered newsroom focused on covering education from a student perspective. Report Card’s mission is to equip students with the training, resources and guidance they need to hold their school system accountable with the power of journalism. The training that I provide is based on my experience as a middle school teacher, an independent education reporter and a journalism student in a masters program at CUNY. It is my belief that the best way to learn journalism is by doing it, so I have students get started right away.

Throughout the entire final semester, I met virtually with this group of students to teach them about journalism and the unique value they bring to the industry through their student perspective. I had my students select a local education issue that they found thought provoking and then jump right into the reporting process. I had over ten guests join our virtual meetings for interviews led by our students. I was there to provide assistance throughout the entire reporting and writing process. At the beginning of this month, Report Card published the deep-dive that the three students worked so hard on about school admission policies in NYC and how they affect students.

This incredible piece of reporting by Rilan, Amden and Alex confirmed my belief that young people have the potential to be excellent journalists when presented with the opportunity. Additionally, I realized that there are a bunch of students out there who are looking for opportunities to tell their own stories. Seven students signed up to join Report Card after I officially launched the project earlier this month. I’m hoping to continue Report Card as a side project for the foreseeable future and I can’t wait to work with the seven new students who want to participate!

I’m nowhere near done engaging with the student community in NYC and I still have a lot to learn. But since I’m graduating from grad school today, here is some advice for other journalists who want to use their journalism skills to work with students:

• My biggest piece of advice for engaging with the student community in NYC is to treat younger people with respect, as equals. Young people have wisdom from their perspectives as young people. Unfortunately, the wisdom of the young often goes unnoticed. Ageism is the reason that students are an undercovered community within the education beat and it’s the biggest reason student feedback is often disregarded by education policy-makers. In order to properly listen to students, you need to drop any internal ageism you may have and prepare yourself to learn from the student community.
• While you should treat young people with respect and as equals, you still need to do everything in your power to protect young people from harm when bringing them into the journalism world. Although young people are wise, they are also a vulnerable community that journalists are responsible for protecting. Provide any necessary additional accommodations in order to make sure that you aren’t exposing children to harm by including them in your reporting process.
• My final advice is to simply follow the engagement journalism program at CUNY’s slogan: listen first. Just like when beginning to cover any community, you would do well to begin your engagement with the student community by listening to their information needs. Not only will this prepare you to do a better job using journalism to serve them, but it will also clue you into some great tips and story ideas that aren’t often found in the news. Listening is the best way to find a story that matters.