Student Newspapers Serve More Than the News

TAKEAWAY: Many of us in our profession would not be here today if it wasn’t for the experience and inspiration gained by working on the student newspaper.

What disturbing news from an article in The New York Times about the decline of student newspapers in high schools across the US, and, particularly in New York.

Obviously, these student newspapers are going through the same transition and uncertainty as mainstream professional newspapers globally, losing the time advantage for news to mobile platforms and social media.

The difference, however, is that student newspapers serve that very important function of inspiring and training future storytellers. It is the student newspaper where many of us who entered this profession first tasted the excitement of seeing our byline on a page, or seeing that article published, experiences that last a lifetime.

In my very personal case, it was joining the Falcon Times at Miami-Dade College and meeting Professor Barbara Garfunkel that not only put me on the path to my lifetime career, but, more importantly, made me, a young and still insecure Cuban refugee feel a sense of accomplishment in my new country, while allowing me to hone my English language skills. Can you imagine the thrill of getting a byline on page one of the Falcon Times for that first story written totally in English?

Eventually that led me to the University of South Florida, on a student newspaper scholarship—-the only way I could have afforded to attend—and becoming the first ever foreign born editor of The Oracle, which went on to win a Pacemaker Award from the Associated Collegiate Press as one of the best five student newspapers in the nation the year of my editorship in 1969.

Later, I became a faculty adviser both to the Falcon Times, at Miami-Dade’s North Campus, and then The Catalyst, at the South Campus, a period of my life in which I taught journalism and guided a group of most talented student journalists, many of whom have gone on to become outstanding professionals.

I would not trade those experiences. More importantly, I would hate for the next generation, which may include my own grandchildren, from having those opportunities.