Community: ECHO News and our Student Journalism Program

The residents of Chugiak-Eagle River don’t just share a proverbial zip code. We share a feeling of fellowship with others, we share common attitudes, interests, and goals.

One of those commonalities is our kids. Our community rallies behind our schools, sports, and programs to make sure our kids are provided with educational and experiential opportunities – often beyond what their classrooms can provide. Sometimes support is financial but often the comes in the form of time and energy. Local business owners, parents, service members – they volunteer, they are the cheering sections at games, and start or maintain after school programs.

The ECHO News is providing one such opportunity.

We at the ECHO are offering interested students the opportunity to explore writing and photography as journalists and photojournalists through our Student Journalism Program. This program provides opportunities to explore journalism and photojournalism in a “real world” setting by providing educational internships, mentorships, and school visits with the goal of printing students’ work in the ECHO News. Students are able to develop many skills: time and project management, effective research, communication and interview skills, writing and photography skills.

Isn’t print dying?

We are often asked why we want to teach journalism to kids using the dying medium of print. Is print really dying? Look around, every coffee shop and corner store has newspapers and magazines galore, and each has staff or freelance writers and photographers who submit articles and photos on a regular basis. Is print media changing? Yes. Dying? No.

All the print media you see has one thing in common – permanence.

Using the idea of a real, concrete, permanent printed media helps kids to understand ethics and why research, appropriateness, decency, and consequences are important. These things are often ignored when articles are published only on the internet. The internet can be changed and updated, print can only be apologized for.