Young Writers Society

Okay, so I want to send in a piece of work to my local newspaper to see if they'll print it, because I want to go on to be a journalist when I'm older. But, I'm stuck on what to write about that is in and concerns my local community. I know no-one on here lives there, but do you have any suggestions on what I could write about?

Also, do you think that it's a good idea that I do this, or just plain stupid? I mean, I'm not asking to be paid for it, it's just something that I'm like to say, "Oh, I did that." For when I go to Uni at least.

Hm?

We did something like that in our school. They had a journalist come in and show us the basics, and then the schoolboard actually reserved two pages in the paper for student articles, so we could submit work and it would be printed.

Make sure to see around if any local papers have a reputation/program for taking student articles.

And yeah, great idea. Make sure to attach a letter or something telling them what you're trying to do.

As for picking a topic, good luck. =P It's hard. What's going on right now in your community? What do people care about? What recent events did you attend that people might be interested in hearing? Stuff like that can help.

Good luck!

Keek ^_^

Well it definitely couldn't hurt. I want to be a journalist myself (either print or something else) and I'm studying it at university, so I know that anything you can say to the interviewer to reinforce why they should accept you is a plus.

That being said though, I don't know what sort of university it is you want to go to. Over here, they assess you predominantly on your high school grades. So I don't know. But whatever, do the article. It can't hurt, right?

I know that the newspaper around here will most likely accept an article from a youth if they're writing about an issue that affects the youth in the community. So maybe that's a recent event that a lot of people your age went to, or vandalism or even just the perspective of a young person on something that's been happening. I'm sorry I can't give you more help, but like you said, I don't live there.

Anyway, you have a fine aspiration and I understand very well what you're doing. Keep writing. Just write anything, it doesn't have to be newspaper articles. PM if you want to talk about it. I do a bit of dealing with my local newspaper so I know a little bit about how they generally work.

If you live in a small town, newspapers are always looking for relevant pieces about high school/middle school sports, choirc concerts, honor students, and things like that. I work for a paper and I see it all the time. Also, interesting non-fiction essays are good too - I can't guarantee they'll print them unless they know you and your writing; however, it's worth a try, and it's fun! I have a column in my local paper and that's pretty much all I write about - just life and creativity and high school.

Hi Liz,

Why don't you offer your services to the local paper? I'm sure they'd take you on as a work experience student - or just as a student to be honest.

I did my work experience at my local newspaper and wrote twenty articles in total that were published - five of them were leads. It was great and you learn how a paper works.

Try ringing your local papers. It's just that I know that my local papers don't accept articles from people other than those working in the office. They only accept letters.

Good luck,
Alainna
xx

I'm currently serving on my local paper's "Teen Council". You could see if they have a committee or board similar to that, or suggest one if they don't.

Look on the paper's website. It'll probably list email addresses for all of the editors. If you just want to publish a column, contact one of the op-ed people. But if you're looking for journalism experience, you might go beyond just publishing a column, as it's not really going to give you much insight into the journalistic world. You could ask if they have a program for student workers or interns, or ask to job-shadow someone for a day or two. Most of the people there would probably be happy to tell you about what they do and show you around.

Also, ask at your school about any internship or work opportunies associated with journalism--they might be with a newspaper or with a magazine or TV station. It would be a lot easier to get something like that through school.

Yes, I really wanted to do my work experience there, in Year Ten and I was told [by the teacher arranging work experience placements] that they were on "the list" for possible employers. So, I didn't go and ask them personally, with the relevant forms, because I thought that they would be on the ready, steady, go and I would have to do is interview against my peers.

But no, on the day, the teacher dropped the bomb that in fact, he had got it wrong and they weren't on the list, so I had to go to a recruitment agency, which I disliked because all I did for two weeks was make a spreadsheet.

Okay, rant over.

Hm, I think it's a good idea about the e-mail to be honest. Get some background information on the newspaper and whether or not they'll take me on. I also have some college work experience coming up, so maybe I'll get a shot at it then.

I'll keep you posted though, and I think I may post the article on here, if I write one. I don't really think post it for tips on how to improve, because then I wouldn't have written it myself, but after I get feedback from the paper, then maybe I would like some feedback off you guys.

I really wanna do this kind of thing after University, so I want to improve majorly.

Oh my gosh!

I know what I should write my article about now, and all thanks to a comment from PennyPenguin on my blog! I could write about the stress of exams and stuff, maybe preach about the fact that we don't have study leave anymore.

Sound good?

go for it!

And don't forget - if at first you don't succeed, try, try again! I didn't get my job at the paper until the THIRD time I went to tal to them about it.

Journalism experience is great -- it really teaches you how to work on a deadline. And it really helps your self-esteem.

Definitely go for whatever experience you can get! If your school has a paper, join it! If you can write for your local paper, go for it! Any experience is huge, and it's always great to see your name on a byline.

I'm an editor for my school paper, so if you want to talk shop with me, let me know!

-Saint Razorblade
The Official YWS Pirate

In my column in our school paper I write about internet stuff. My most recent article was about facebook and why I don't like it due to the nature of how you interact with people and the "privacy" policy. Last time I wrote about how MMORPG's are bad too and make teens believe they are building real relationships and social skills by playing these game while in reality they are just doing the opposite. Granted these are both supposed to be biased but you could use something like that and just talk about it.