Thursday, October 22, 2009

Do high schools still have printed newspapers? If not, what do they have? If they have online papers, are those called by the old name (e.g. The Daltonian), or do they have new, snazzy web-enabled names?

Thanks, Hive Mind!

9:43 AM

2 Comments:

At least in Northern Virginia, high schools still have printed newspapers, and I can think of a few reasons why.

1. Money - A high school of 3,000 students with a printed newspaper can sell ads in a paper distributed to 3,500 students, faculty and staff. If it were online, they could sell ads on a website with a viewership of what, 100? Students read school papers because the paper is put in front of the student, if it went online students would have to actively seek it out, which they aren't likely to do.

2. Curriculum - Journalism is still a class, meaning there is a set curriculum built around print journalism. Changes to the curriculum would take a lot of time and effort. Blogging hasn't been around long enough.

3. The Teacher - The schools hired journalism teachers years ago. They can't fire the teacher, so if the teacher doesn't want to change the program, its not going to work.

By  Unknown, at 10:12 AM  

Depends on the school. As Richard have pointed out, a lot of times it's about the teacher's unwillingness to change.

I used to teach at a school where the journalism teacher still PASTED their paper. In 2004 they were still pasting, not using any computer programs. I begged her to change and offered to show her how to use the program but she never did.

I was interviewed once for a school that had no paper and no desire to start one.

I currently work at a new school where we had no paper for the first three years, then a teacher took on the class for a year, then got laid off so we again have no paper.

We've discussed putting a digital newspaper on our website but nobody wants to take the time to do it.

Since I teach yearbook I run into newspapers a lot. Most schools do still print.

By  Emily Blake, at 1:10 AM  

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