In the past few weeks, readers have expressed concern that we haven’t printed stories about the recent achievements of some of the youth organizations in the community, and we have to confess that we were unaware of some of these accomplishments.
Ironically, in a couple of these instances the organizations involved actually have a ‘reporter’ position in their ranks, and we want to use the unfortunate omissions to challenge those groups to staff those positions and set expectations for them.
We also think these organizations should take advantage of this newspaper’s desire to mentor students in a field that is of vital importance to our society. That is especially true in an era when the number of “citizen journalists” who use the internet to inform their fellow citizens is growing rapidly.
Former interns of the News Letter Journal are now serving as editors for at least three different newspapers in other communities. At least three others have held the position of editor at their college newspaper, and several more have gone on to succeed in related fields. We hate to see youth organizations wasting the chance to provide this sort of opportunity to its members.
We also think it is wrong for students to be able to claim on college applications that they served as a “reporter” for their organization if they didn’t actually perform the duties of a reporter, and will not make additional efforts to publicize the activities of those groups if they continue to fail to make that effort themselves.