Reprinted from the Salt Lake Tribune website today:
PBS opens national stage for West High students
SLC school is among 6 in nation chosen to participate in Student Reporting Lab.
By Rosemary Winters
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/22/2010 07:05:42 AM MDT
Students in West High School's TV West class dash around a low-budget television studio with shag carpet and turquoise couches. Three kids huddle around a microphone after the second-period bell rings to deliver morning announcements to classroom speakers.
The class, split into two periods of 25 or so students each, produces a weekly TV news show that airs Fridays in first period. But thanks to a new partnership with PBS NewsHour Extra, these student reporters are now tackling national news stories that reach beyond the day-to-day talk of baseball games and junior prom.
They're producing videos about the U.S. Supreme Court and global climate change for national viewers.
NewsHour Extra, an online educational branch of the Washington, D.C.-based NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, has launched a Student Reporting Lab with a $200,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Salt Lake City's West High is one of six high schools across the country chosen to participate this year. The other schools are in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Texas, Louisiana and Washington, D.C.
"I see [reporting] as a form of learning," says Leah Clapman, managing editor of education at NewsHour Extra. "Making connections to what's going on in the world to your curriculum is a very important motivating factor for young people."
For their first assignment, students in the TV West class produced two videos about the U.S. Supreme Court. One group examined the tension between parental rights and children's individual rights. A second looked at rulings that upheld students' First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.
"It was a lot more interesting" than routine school news, said West High senior Clara Purk. "It was interesting to learn how Utah is so parental-rights focused."
Now, Purk and other students are reporting on global warming, including scientific findings and the fiery political debate the topic generates in Utah's conservative Legislature.
As part of the reporting lab, the TV West class has teamed up with Utah Education Network, a public media station. UEN, in turn, offers mentors and assistance tracking down experts to interview. KUER reporter Dan Bammes coached the fledgling journalists on story telling and script writing for their Supreme Court pieces.
"It's been awesome for my kids," said West High teacher Jared Wright, who noted the students already do four in-depth features a year to air on the school news program. "When they got this assignment from PBS, it was really quite natural for them."
NewsHour Extra also provided TV West with file footage to use in student reports and a $1,000 grant to spend on
equipment -- a "boon," Wright said, in a year when he's been told he does not have any money to buy new video gear. The students' videos are posted on the NewsHour Extra Web site and could be plugged during a NewsHour broadcast.
PBS NewsHour, Clapman said, is interested in gathering student perspectives on national stories, cultivating more savvy consumers of news and mentoring the next generation of journalists.
"I want to do this in real life," Purk said. "It is something that I'm very passionate about."
Purk leans toward documentary or dramatic filmmaking, but she's also open to broadcast journalism. She has been offered a debate scholarship to the University of Southern California, and she's crossing her fingers that she gets accepted into the film program. She hopes her work producing videos for TV West and an advanced film class will give her an edge.
"If I get into the film school it's definitely because of this," says Purk, 17. "I could not have done anything I've accomplished [in film] without this class and without the equipment."
rwinters@sltrib.com