With a lack of data and research surrounding the state of student journalism in the United States today, it is difficult to understand the landscape of student publications, what challenges they face and what resources they need. However, conversations with just a few stakeholders reveals that despite a variety of struggles, the passion for student journalism is alive and well.

Despite research from 2019 indicating a rise in student interest in journalism, some high school programs in Kentucky have had to overcome waning participation. The February 2024 issue of Eastern Eagle, the student newspaper of Eastern High School in Jefferson County, ran an article titled “Newspaper Needs YOU (and yearbook does, too).” Written by only one of two students who would be returning to the staff for the 24-25 school year, the piece attempts to encourage more students to join the newspaper by highlighting perks like media passes, exploring the school and expanding resumes for college applications. 

Trina Helson, the advisor of Eastern Eagle since 2001, has seen interest in producing the newspaper wane over the course of her time at Eastern. 

“When I first started teaching here, you know, way, way back in the olden days, journalism was still a career that people aspired to do,” she said, “Speaking only at Eastern High School, there's not a big draw for students to want to be journalists as a career goal.”

Whereas, previously she could easily have a class of over 30 newspaper students, she now has to rely on heavy recruiting to get a staff big enough to produce their paper. The current staff of the Eastern Eagle is 14 students, with six lined up to return next year.

A similar story played out last year at Henry Clay High School in Fayette County. In March 2024, Sydney Cain, the co-editor in chief of Devil’s Advocate, the online student news site at Henry Clay, published a piece entitled “Potential removal of Journalism raises concern at HC.” According to Cain, the school was considering cutting multiple elective options in order to allow more opportunities for students to take more popular courses. Although there were a sufficient number of students looking to take the course the following year, journalism was still on the chopping block.

“To take away student newspaper means to limit the student body’s freedom of expression,” Cain wrote in the piece. In the article she also refutes the idea to turn the newspaper class into an after school extracurricular. She points out that this option is not equitable to all students wanting to participate.

“We were able to keep the course through the impact of that article that you found and we also did some recruiting,” Cain said, “We want to continue to recruit and get people to be interested and more knowledgeable about what journalism is.” Cain sees the struggles of Devil’s Advocate to be in line with what is happening at schools across the nation.

At Lafayette High School also in Fayette County, Eva Alcaraz-Monje witnesses the problem of student interest in a different way. While there are plenty of students on the newspaper staff – in fact the school has two classes to accommodate them all – not all students are truly interested in doing the work.

“This is something that does require a lot more dedication than other extracurriculars,” Alcaraz-Monje, the co-editor-in-chief of The Lafayette Times said. While they feel the problem has gotten better this year, last year they struggled with many writers writing “fluff” pieces or not diving deep enough into stories. 

“There are quite a couple of kids that I know that are just assigned to the class and it sucks for them because they have to be in a class they don't really want to be in,” they said.

Student publications adapt to new technologies

Student publications are also constantly having to adapt with new technologies, whether it be deciding to abandon traditional print publishing, grappling with social media or fighting the influence of AI.

One such change is more and more school newspapers are going digital. Both The Lafayette Times and Devil’s Advocate are mostly published via their respective websites. Both publications also have published one printed newspaper called “The Senior Edition” each spring to commemorate the graduating class. However, editors at both publications note how much work just this one print edition is.

“It's really really stressful to put together, but seeing the end result is really worth it,” Alcaraz-Monje said of The Lafayette Times’ Senior Edition.

Henry Clay made the decision to abandon the tradition this school year.

“We really did love that tradition, but it just was becoming less popular and it was kind of expensive for something that not everyone was super interested in at our school. So this year we went completely online,” Cain said.

Cain reports that her publication has seen success with the shift to digital publishing. 

“Now we get more time to write more stories, because printing newspapers and designing the layout of just one edition of the paper takes a lot of time, and so we can expand what we're writing stories about, and also just produce more articles,” she said.

Going digital isn’t without its drawbacks though. Eastern Eagle attempted to make the switch a few years ago.

“That was a mistake as far as for us. It was really hard getting the readership, it was really hard keeping up with it and it was really hard to stay motivated,” Helson said. “We tried a combination of both, that was difficult as well. So now we're strictly print again.”

 Helson says students at Eastern seem to like the vintage nature of the print publication. 

“We kind of have a little bit of a lean towards going back to retro. Students are more interested now in having the paper in their hands because it's what used to happen. I guess it's the same concept of people being interested, maybe, in vinyl,” she said.

Another thing Helson has noticed over the course of her time as the newspaper advisor at Eastern is the growing presence of social media. Whereas before the newspaper was looked to to spread the word about school events and announcements, the use of social media has largely taken away that responsibility.

“The principal might have a social media account. The senior class has a social media account, each of the classes, every team has a social media account, boosters have social media accounts,” she said, “Now there's so many and each one of those wants the stories to be their own.” 

Finally, the development of AI technology has made the future for not only student publications hazy, but also for the journalism industry as a whole.

“I think students are taking the easy way out because it is so easy to use AI,” Cain said, “I think writing has just become something that students dread and that students try to not do.”

Alcaraz-Monje recounted an incident from last year when a writer was found having used AI to author an article. 

“We caught that because we thought it was really weird the story came out a lot quicker. It wasn't fully AI I think, but some parts were plagiarized or from a software,” they said.

Despite these struggles, student publications are still providing students with many invaluable learning opportunities. 

“Overall, I'm super proud of this educational experience that we give to students,” said Liz Palmer, the Journalism and Communication Department Chair at duPont Manual High School in Jefferson County. 

Palmer points to journalism’s ability to help students actively engage in what they are learning as a key benefit of working on a student news publication. “I see people forgetting that they're actually learning so much in this process because of how exciting and applicable it is. And that is what led me to get involved in teaching journalism to begin with,” she said.

The issue of access

But for the many students in Kentucky with no news publication at their school, they must find other ways to seek out that experience. Lucinda Ayres is a Sophomore at Meade County High School. She has always loved writing and developed a passion for journalism at a young age, even starting a school blog for her middle school. 

“I managed and edited for it and helped put it all out,” she said, “I really discovered a passion I had for of course, sharing my own voice, but also helping other people use their voices and kind of shaping stories and connections.” 

However, when her family relocated to Meade County before she started high school, she realized she would have to seek out journalism opportunities outside of school. Ayres reached out to her local community newspaper and began writing for them last May. 

“Since then I've been learning as I go, honestly about the process and getting more and more into it and it's been really rewarding,” she said, “Everything in the newspaper business is a lot different from just writing for my little middle school blog.”

Ayres recognizes that since she lives in a small town her local paper is relatively accessible. Her experience of working at the paper has helped solidify her future career plans as well.

“It's so fun and it's really confirmed everything that I’ve ever felt about wanting to go into journalism because I'm like, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be,” she said. For other students however, a school publication may be their only experience to uncover a passion for journalism they may have never known they had.

“I think that there are a lot of students that don't know that they would be interested, but they would be interested because there's so many people that I know that really enjoy writing or really enjoy graphic design or taking pictures,” Ayres said when asked if given the opportunity, students at her school would be interested in participating in student journalism. “I think we definitely have the students that have the passion.”

While the exact numbers of student publications at Kentucky’s high schools is uncertain, Palmer highlights that the state is lacking in an organizational infrastructure to unite journalism educators and programs. 

“In some other states we have very large and well-funded, or better funded, I should say, state journalism organizations. Like sometimes these organizations are given space and even staffing by local universities. We don't have that here,” Palmer explained, “You could travel to Kansas or California or something like that and you'll find that there's a huge network.”

The Kansas Scholastic Press Association was founded in the 1970s and is a leading model in organizing and supporting student news publications. The organization keeps an updated list of member schools and publications, organizing them by Areas and Classifications. Currently there are almost 100 high schools in the Association. 

Such an exhaustive list does not exist in Kentucky. A statewide student press association could offer support to students and advisors alike. Additionally, a lack of data means there is not clarity around what inequalities exist in the world of high school publications. Questions around what regions of the state lack journalism programs the most or how school funding correlates to the presence of student publications could be answered with more concrete data.

Palmer believes supporting student journalism is more important than ever. “I think journalism education, another way that it helps people, is that it helps create empathy,” she said, “What does it mean to be a good human being? What does it mean to have empathy? What is the value of empathy? I never felt like that would be so questioned as it is today, but that just means that my mission here becomes even more important.”

Student journalists are crucial to adding unique perspectives to the conversations happening in the world today. “I wish that people knew that just because we're kids or we're students doesn't mean that we don't have valuable input to whatever situation we're reporting on,” Ayres said.

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