LA Youth

LA Youth, the newspaper by and about Los Angeles teens, publishes monthly, and is distributed to more than 1,400 Los Angeles county public/private schools, libraries, and youth organizations.

High school teenagers (grades 9-12) are the group of journalists, known as staff writers, whom work on each monthly publication. Even eight grade (8th grade) students who want to get involved, can attend staff meetings, network with others, and contribute to the paper.

The staff writers prepare each issue by attending Saturday staff meetings, held at the LA Youth office in the Fairfax District. At the meetings, staff writers meet with the adult staff and newcomers. Current staff is always encouraged to bring in friends and siblings, to broaden the number of students involved on the paper.

The meeting consists of each writer/student presenting himself/herself to the rest of the students, such as what school he/she goes to, what he likes to do for fun, and where he's planning to attend college. Students at the meetings come from different cities, such as San Fernando Valley, West LA, inner Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles. With all these different students, each one is able to share their differences in school graduation requirements, police enforcement, crime and violence, and other topics.

Every topic discussed at the staff meetings acts as a planning/thinking-ahead/ready to succeed, factor. The adult staff always motivates the youth, making sure that students whom represent the newspaper, are hard-workers and hungry learners.

After self presentations, the adult staff continue the meeting by asking if current articles have been revised, finished. If any staff member is having an issue, he/she can share it with the rest, and have support from others. Even sharing an issue can give a staff writer an idea to write an article. If the adult staff finds it compelling, then the writer can begin writing the article.