Installment+10

South of Denver

Chapter 10 - November 8, 2004

"Oh my gosh! I'm reading the paper!" squealed Kelly. "I never read!"

Most of the Rock Canyon journalism class was positively giddy when the very first issue of The Rock was delivered late last Wednesday morning. We happened to have class when they arrived. I held everyone together long enough to organize a make-shift delivery of the papers throughout the building, and everyone was eager to get them out there. As far as getting anything done that resembled journalism education, well. that would have to wait for another day.

Despite the soon-discovered typos that mysteriously slipped through our proofing, despite the placeholder subhead that read "This is a deck, which provides more information for scanners," that never was replaced with a live deck, despite the fact that we misidentified the football players on page 4, everyone was feeling pretty darn good about themselves.

On Friday, when we had settled down a bit, we talked about how our readers would never, and should never, know just how hard it had been to put together our 8-page paper. "Seeing a high school newspaper put together," I said, "is a lot like watching sausage being made. It's better just to enjoy the sausage, and not worry about how it tastes they way it does."

Most of the class looked puzzled. After all, how many of them have ever actually seen sausage being made? But they got the gist of the reference.

Then Adrienne said, "The poms yelled at me last night through the whole game." Since she is a pom, she found this somewhat distressing. In our rather brief coverage of the dance team, the reporter had mentioned some stereotypes often associated with the poms, noting that some students at the school had characterized them as "snotty, mean and dumb." The rest of the piece seemed to refute that stereotype. Evidently, the refutation had not done the trick, at least for the poms.

In fact, the self-appointed leader of the group had already been by to discuss the coverage with me, letting me know just how upset and hurt the group was. I told her that I was sorry she was upset, and that we would try to do better in our next issue. She was a well-spoken and polite young woman, who I thought was at least satisfied that she had been heard. Apparently that wasn't enough for her, because a few hours later she blasted poor Adrienne, who had nothing to do with the story, and wouldn't let up.

Adrienne added, "Eventually she said, 'I know I'm acting just like the story says we act, but I'm just so angry.' " Adrienne is rapidly becoming a connoisseur of irony, and seemed to enjoy relating this bit of information.

I actually was delighted that we had only offended one group in the first issue. I subscribe to the notion that a newspaper that isn't making people a bit angry really isn't doing its job, but I had hoped to establish some good will, especially with such a young staff, before things get rougher.

Our front page coverage was headlined "Morning After," and included a variety of student quotes on why kids should care about the election. We also got to break some actual "news," thanks to the social studies department, which held off on sharing the results of the school's mock election until the paper could do it. Seventy percent of Douglas County's voters are registered Republicans, and our students mirrored their parents' choices.

The best writing in the paper was our very first commentary, by Susie, in which she detailed how her political views had evolved from strongly Republican (her parents' views) by really studying how she feels about the main issues. She wrote about being surprised to find that she agreed with the Kerry positions two-thirds of the time, and how she had recently stayed up until 2 a.m. discussing gay marriage with her mother.

But the cool thing was watching this young woman go from someone who two weeks ago was without a clear idea on what she wanted to write about, to someone with a strong, readable, passionate voice whose commentary rivals any personal opinion piece I've read in a high school paper in years.

Helping a young woman find her voice. that's the point of it all.

As pessimistic as I was about our efforts a week before, I was suddenly looking forward to issue 2.

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon High School

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

jkkennedy@comcast.net

jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org