As you may or may not know, I am currently a high school senior at William Mason High School, as well as a writer for the school's student newspaper, The Mason Chronicle. In my yearlong endeavor with The Chronicle, I have learned so much about being a journalist, from what content to produce to how to represent myself. I believe that learning how to write for such a professional and supportive newspaper, especially at the high school level, has taught lessons that I will use five, ten, even 20 or 40 years down the road as I tread my path to a foothold in professional journalism. However, I am only one of a select few that have the opportunity that I have.
Like I said, I consider The Chronicle as quite the professional organization, and myself and the rest of the staff treat it as such. However, most other high school newspapers don't treat themselves as professional and don't take the newspaper as seriously as they should. For example, other high school newspapers don't have a website, or rarely post new content there if they do have one. This is where The Chronicle shines as well, with their website, Thecspn.com, always putting down interesting stories about what's going on in the community, and keeping things fresh around the site through savvy redesigns. Other newspapers could certainly learn a lot from them.
This is why high school journalism is important. It's much more than simply having a student newspaper, it must be held to high standards, both by the students, faculty, and staff.
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