Newsflash: Many teens just don't realize they're interested in news

NMI's Barbara Armijo, a veteran journalist, is also a first-year media literacy teacher at Albuquerque's newest public high school, Atrisco Heritage Academy.

ALBUQUERQUE -- Day one as a teacher and I stood there in Room 414 looking at 30 kids in my first period class staring back at me. I wondered if they wanted me to say something funny or meaningful? Maybe they just wanted me to tell them what time lunch starts or if I give out a lot of homework. I was more than a little scared, but a summer's worth of work with some incredible, experienced, teachers brought me back to earth and to the students.

"Teach what you know," my colleagues had told me.

What I know is journalism. I teach media literacy at this new Albuquerque Public Schools high school, Atrisco Heritage Academy. In addition to learning about journalism and the media, students in two of those classes also will work on our school's news functions -- an online edition and a print edition. Students in three of the classes also will work on the inaugural yearbook.

My students are all freshmen, most of them 14 years old. Other than that, I didn't know much more about them. I didn't know if they liked to write or were interested in journalism. Some of them, it was clear, signed up for yearbook because they knew they could take pictures of their friends. That was the extent of what they know about putting out a yearbook or a newspaper.

"How many of you read the local newspaper?"

I'm pretty sure I heard snickering, but no hands went up. So I asked another question.

"How many of your parents get the newspaper?"

One hand went up and the young lady said, "We get it on Sunday, but I don't really look at it."

Gulp. So they weren't reading their news from newspapers. OK, maybe they're online consumers.

"How many of you read news online?"

One student said he reads Yahoo news sometimes if it's about his favorite sports hero or rock band.

"How many of you watch the morning or evening news?"

A few hands went up, and one young man said if his mom has the news on in the morning he might catch a story or two while he's putting his shoes on before he catches the bus.

"How many of you hear news on the radio?"

Again, a hand or two went up. One girl said she only listens to the radio when her IPod dies, but that, yes, sometimes she'll hear a traffic report or some news.

For the most part, these were not consumers of the news. As it turns out, my students are not unlike most of America, as a story in the Huffington Post recently spelled out. Newspaper readership is down, Internet reading is increasing, but most people still turn to TV for their news.

While my heart sank thinking that my students weren't reading the news, I remembered what I was there for. I'd have to teach them about the news and why it is important. So after I passed out the syllabus and we talked about grading, class rules and what was expected of them, one student said, "But Miss, it says here we have to write. What if we can't write and we don't want to write?"

I told them not to worry, that writing would be part of the class and that they would all be better writers when we were done. Then I passed out sections from the Albuquerque Journal, New York Times and copies of Rolling Stone magazine and the Alibi. Every kid got a different newspaper or magazine.

Then I put four or five students in front of my laptop computer and dialed up the New Mexico Independent and had them read at least one story. I gave everyone 25 minutes to read something and told them I would be going around the room asking them what they read.

But before the 25 minutes were up, one girl stretched out her arm and waved it to get my attention.

"This story here says that some bar owners in New Jersey were discrimminating against fat girls," she said. "It says that they didn't let bigger girls into their bar cuz it was bad for business. That's just wrong and that pisses me off."

She went on to read the class some of the story and she was getting more irrate. Then she said that the end of the story said the bar owners got so many letters from people from all over the world that they had to change their rules and let big girls into the bar.

"How'd all those people know about this bar in New Jersey," she asked?

I told the class that these people either read about it in a newspaper, via the wire services that send out interesting and important stories all over the world, or they heard it on TV, radio or the Internet.

"That's what news is, and a lot of times the news forces people to take action against something that is wrong" I said.

Then I asked if anyone else was reading something interesting. Before I knew it, hands were shooting up and the topics ranged from how Ben Stiller directed his new movie "Tropic Thunder," to how a reporter went undercover in a religious cult just to see how freaky that was. One student read outloud the story in the Independent about our new school opening up.

News was happening all around me. And nobody wanted to stop to go to the bathroom or to get a drink of water.

And so it will go in my classes: 20 minutes at one of three news stations -- a newspaper/magazine table, a TV/radio table or the Internet table. When they are done they will write me one paragraph about the most interesting thing they read. After that, I'll go on with my lessons on how to write a story, how to be a reporter or how to take a newsworthy photograph.

It's not that they didn't want the news, I've decided. They just weren't sure how and where to get it. For now, they get it in room 414.

print Share

Register or log in to rate