Reporter among nation's 10 'Teen Fellows'

Teens from across the nation sit around a table, staring at each other and wondering what in the world they have gotten themselves into. What will the next three days hold for them?

Each year, the National Newspaper Association sponsors their Youth Editorial Alliance (YEA), which spans three days. The editors over the youth sections from newspapers all over the nation come to attend workshops to learn what teens are looking for in the paper.

The NNA also selects 10 "Teen Fellows." The job of these teens is to make sure that the adults are getting things right.

This year I was selected as one of the teen fellows, based on an article I wrote last year as part of the Deseret Morning News Pulse team. (The story was an interview with teens in Saudia Arabia, at a school where my uncle was teaching.) So I was invited to attend the NNA conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- all expenses paid.

To start out our participation in the conference, the fellows attended a writing workshop with Jack Kennedy, an award-winning journalism teacher. He instructed us on being innovative and creative in our writing. This was to be useful in the next phase of the conference, when the fellows would really get down to business.

First thing the next morning we put our heads together to create what we would consider our ideal teen section. Splitting off into pairs, we decided on some general characteristics that can either attract or repel teens from reading the paper. We addressed several issues, including news stories, columns and spotlights. We encompassed these different areas into articles and created our "ideal" section.

So what do teens want from the newspaper? Our brainstorming revealed several things:

-- In reference to news stories, teens don't want to be fed statistics. They want the broad issue to be brought closer to home. Instead of general reports on the war in the Middle East, they prefer to hear about a local teen who enlisted and got deployed.

-- Teens also enjoy reading about normal teens who haven't necessarily done something heroic. Spotlights are a great way to do this. "Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary" is something that appeals to the teen readership.

-- Columns, we decided, are a good way to develop reader familiarity. A column keeps the reader coming back to see what the writer has to say.

-- One other thing that can really catch a teen's interest is the design. If the design is catchy, it will be more likely to entice teens to read the stories.

In addition to addressing what needs to be part of the printed paper, we also touched on the importance of the Web for the new generation. The Web site should offer something besides just what is in the printed section -- especially if the paper is trying to establish readership of the printed newspaper.

Our ideas included such supplements as polls, photo galleries, audio and video clips, staff biographies and columns. One thing for papers to consider is that although the space for a teen section in the actual paper is limited, on the Web there is no limit on space.

The consensus among all the teen fellows about what needs to happen to get teens to want to read the newspaper is having something specifically written by and for teens.

Alan Boccadoro, one of the teen fellows, summed it up best: "Continue to get kids involved with the newspaper, because they are tomorrow's readers."

Cindy Washburn is a senior at Copper Hills and a member of the Deseret Morning News Pulse team of high school writers. If you are a Utah high school student and have a topic you would like to see covered, please e-mail pulse@desnews.com or write to Susan Whitney at the Deseret Morning News.

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