"The Pride": Investing in the future

For nine days earlier this summer, 22 high school journalists from around the state and some two dozen professionals came together on the campus of Oregon State University to eat, sleep, breathe and do journalism.

It was the annual High School Journalism Institute run by The Oregonian and OSU, begun in the '80s to give hands-on training to talented young people with a goal of boosting newsroom diversity. That goal is more important than ever in today's America. The U.S. population is becoming ever more diverse, with immigrants from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe streaming into our cities and schools. Yet, newsroom staffs are shrinking and becoming less diverse as a result of the beating we've taken during the recession. Unless we reverse the trend, we risk going back to the days when minority voices and viewpoints were too often overlooked or misunderstood.

Enter "The Pride" -- a 40-page tab-sized newspaper produced by the 22 students with the help of their professional mentors. Nearly all are students of color; many are low-income and the first in their family on track to attend college. During their time in Corvallis, camp director Yuxing Zheng writes, the students got "hands-on training in reporting, writing, shooting photos, producing audio slide shows, blogging and other multimedia elements." Along with the print newspaper, they posted lots of content to http://blog.oregonlive.com/teen

Along with profiles of each student, their work encompasses an impressive variety of topics, including Oregon's only all-Muslim cemetery, gay pride, recycling and alternative energy, art and musical theater camps, farm life and Latina identity, just to name a few. The work really is quite good -- the photography especially striking. And it isn't just the students who come away energized from the week. Read Melissa Navas' testimonial: "Editor savors students' oohs, ahs as they see newspaper for first time"

I've been meaning for some time to write about The Pride and this year's camp participants but I wanted to wait until I'd actually gotten through the newspaper. I've been carrying it around for days, squeezing in a story here and a story there while riding the bus to and from work.

A final note: Yuxing (pronounced you-shing) is the shining example of what the journalism institute can do. She attended the camp as a South Albany High School sophomore and did so well she was invited back to be a student assistant. She went on to earn national High School Journalist of the Year honors and admission to Northwestern University's highly regarded journalism school. A handful of internships later, she joined The Oregonian's reporting staff straight out of college and now, in her mid-20s, is directing the whole show. I'm proud to call her my colleague.

Photograph by Melissa Navas