Shanna's Journalism Year In Review

To start, the first thing that the Journalism students and I learned about was the role of credibility in journalism and its importance. Credibility is defined as, “the quality of being trusted and believed in.” The example we used was to research our teacher’s life; this included his full name, date of birth, address, educational history, employment history, family, criminal history, and voter registration. This activity helped the class and I understand how simple and easy it is to search up information online and how that information might not be credible.

The next assignment the class and I did was read an article on the brief history of journalism and watch videos on its history and ethics. The journalism history article had information about the advancements of journalism in chronological order that helped guide journalists to journalism. The advancements were the printing press in 1440, radio broadcasts in 1920, television broadcasts in 1940, internet news in 1991, and lastly, social media in the early 2000s. The journalism history video taught me a more brief overview of the history, mentioning that the newspaper was the main source of information for everyday people, journalism expanded with the radio and television, and the internet helped journalism to go digital which helped people get the latest news the moment they were revealed.

Through videos covering them, I learned about the ethics of journalism, or the journalism core values: accuracy, independence, impartiality (fairness), humanity, and accountability (admitting mistakes when you are wrong). Understanding these terms helped me know what traits a good journalist requires. After finishing the videos and articles, the class and I answered three questions to help us remember what is important. The questions inquired about what journalism is, how it has changed throughout history, and why ethics are important.

We then completed an assignment where we were given five different journalist situations and asked to write what we would do if we were the journalist. These questions focused on the ethics of journalism. Some examples of these questions are admitting a mistake of false information, rewording a caption that would hurt a well-known musician’s image, removing a billboard from a photo since the owner didn’t pay for an advertisement, reporting the daughter’s principal of a different school has been arrested for a DUI, and reporting that a teacher was smoking marijuana in a rock concert review. These questions helped me recognize what might be considered right or wrong for journalists.

To establish our news outlet’s website called The Pollinator Post, we needed to complete an assignment on our beats and write short autobiographies to put on our website. Afterwards, we began to work on our first articles in October. The first thing we needed to do was complete an article draft, but I didn’t write one because I couldn’t figure out what to write about. Instead, I wrote an introduction to The Pollinator Post which I found much easier. Next, the class and I had to complete edits and proofread our classmates’ articles. I found this helpful since it helped me see other writing styles and gave me ideas for future articles.

To review journalism key terms, we played a kahoot to help our class practice for the assessment we took later on December 13th. Also, each of us had to read at least two articles and post them on Padlet for the week of November 12th and the week of November 18th which I liked doing because I enjoyed the topics of the articles I was reading. The class and I figured out that we should have at least one article completed at the end of the month, respond to and edit at least two articles from our peers each month, and read two articles and post them on Padlet each week. But for November, I didn’t have an article completed because, again, I didn’t have anything to write about and I spent a lot of time on the physical copy of the Pollinator Post so the introduction I completed previously counted as an article.

However, I managed to write an article for December and January called “Grace Under Pressure: The Hidden Strength of a Ballet Dancer,” which took me a while to think of. In the article, I focused on my experience in ballet and the technique, strength, flexibility, physical and mental endurance, musicality, coordination, and performance that a ballet dancer must have.

At the start of December, my class and I began to prepare for the podcast we wanted to create called the Hive Happenings. We recorded multiple episodes later on, around the 3rd quarter, but never published any since we all decided that we didn’t like them. I think that we should record more because they were really fun to create.

After some help from my teacher, I found it easier to find topics to write about for my articles. For example, for my short contribution for my January monthly article, I decided to write about arthritis and the myth of cracking bones from the information I found when conducting an interview with my dad who is a chiropractor. Another example is that, for my lengthy article in February, I wrote about the impact of bird flu and the shortage of eggs in Miami. An additional article I wrote was on class sizes in high school for my March final project which focused on the pros and cons of large school sizes and small school sizes.

Recently, around two weeks ago, I finished my assignment for the Quote and Positive Message. I used the quote, “Home is wherever we are, if there’s love here too.” I also finished my assignment for teacher appreciation week where I wrote about Ms. Dominique. Currently, I am working on my end of the year project, passionate writing article, and my reflection for Journalism class

In conclusion, throughout the year in Journalism, I found it difficult to choose topics for my articles but with the help of my teacher I was able to find topics I enjoyed writing about. I learned a lot about the history, ethics, role, and importance of journalism during the beginning of the school year and learned more about different writing styles of journalism towards the end. I have had so much fun in the class because of writing about stuff I like, designing the website, and working with my friends on editing.

Interested? Find more by Shanna here!

ABOUT SHANNA

Shanna is a 9th-grader taking her first journalism class at Centner Academy. She is responsible for writing captions and brief introductions for articles, as well as designing the physical copy of the Pollinator Post. Shanna is passionate about writing reviews and conducting interviews. Outside of journalism, Shanna also enjoys ballet.