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 become 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 student newcomers. Students and staff writers are always encouraged to bring in friends and siblings, to broaden the number of students involved on the paper and have as many 'L.A. youth' voices heard.
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 the San Fernando Valley, West L.A., inner Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles. With the diversity of students, each student is able to share their differences about school graduation requirements, police enforcement misconduct, crime and violence, and other controversial news.
Every topic discussed at the staff meetings acts as a planning/thinking-ahead/ready to succeed, factor. The adult staff always motivates its youth, being sure that students whom represent the paper, are hard-workers and motivated learners.
After student presentations at the meeting, the adult staff take over by asking if current articles have been revised, finished. If any staff member is having an issue, he/she can share it with the group and achieve support. Even sharing an issue can give another staff writer an idea to write an article. If the adult staff agrees it's an important issue to discuss, then the writer can begin brainstorming, find other interested writers, and write the article. Writers have a variety of methods in writing for the paper. They can write articles in personal tone, reporter tone, and even add polls and quotes from people. Students with photography and art talent can contribute to an article by doing photography or drawing.
The most written about articles on LA Youth are personal experiences, which teach the reader how to handle certain situations in life, or to do what's best for one's future. E.g., in a recent article for the May-June 2007 issue, young writer Fred from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, shares how cheating off his classmate became a true embarrassment to his future.