Teen journalists learn the power -- and responsibility -- of the press

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Candy Hatcher

Teen journalists learn the power -- and responsibility -- of the press

Monday, April 8, 2002

By CANDY HATCHER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

FROM: A columnist at the P-I

TO: The staff of Mockingbird Times

RE: Journalism and life

Tell your boss you deserve another 50-cent raise.

You've been at this newspaper business only a few months, in uncharted territory as the nation's only monthly paper produced by youths in foster care.

You're learning to be reporters, figuring out the difference between advocacy and objectivity, writing book reviews and features and editing copy.

You have propelled yourselves from victims to advocates, and now are known as journalists and employees, not simply survivors of the system.

And you're making money writing. Well, OK, $7 an hour isn't exactly a Dan Rather wage, but it's a start -- and only $2 an hour less than the state pays adult counselors in group homes.

You're also seeing the importance of education, and beating the odds, since 60 percent of adolescents in foster care don't graduate from high school.

I appreciate that although you're based in Seattle, you're distributing the paper statewide, 20,000 copies to youths, social service agencies and bureaucrats in such places as Olympia, Tacoma and Yakima. Kids from all over the state, in foster care and on the street, are contributing to the paper, seeing their work published -- and getting paid.

I love that you accompanied 150 foster kids when they went to Olympia to lobby for more money from the state -- and then wrote about it for those who weren't able to be there. Ditto for last month's foster-care conference in Yakima. You didn't go to talk about your experiences growing up in dozens of foster homes; you went as reporters covering the conference, and published your report last week (available soon on the Web site, www.mockingbirdsociety.org).

You're learning the power -- and responsibility -- of the press. You're learning to question things that don't seem right, to stick up for people who can't stick up for themselves.

The work you're doing, reporting and advocating for children, fits perfectly with the name your director chose for the newspaper -- and the non-profit organization that sponsors it. From "To Kill a Mockingbird": "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."

The day I visited the Mockingbird Times, you had the guts to second-guess a headline your boss wrote. You wondered whether it was too promotional to say a state scholarship for foster kids "improves foster care."

As Brittany Lucas, one of your writers, observed, "We shouldn't be biased toward any agency. I don't want to endorse the fund as a cool thing."

Lucas, like one-fourth of the foster kids leaving the system at age 18, was living on the street three months ago. She found out about the Mockingbird Times and sent a story. Now she's working 15 hours a week for the paper and using her earnings to help pay rent.

"I really like writing," she told me. In three months, she has learned to write news stories and proofread pages. She's published poetry. Now 19, she has earned a 50-cent raise. She understands that it's the job of the editorial page and columnists -- not reporters -- to endorse or slap down proposals.

She, like all of you, wants the paper to point out the need for more projects such as this one.

"These kids don't have parents to lean on," she said. "It makes you feel better when you're actually working."

She's one Mockingbird Times success story, one of the core group of about four teens working regularly with Mockingbird Society Director Jim Theofelis on $10,000 a month that trickles in from donations and grants.

Reginald Herts is another. He writes music and movie reviews, but he'd also like to "blow out an investigative story that's going to catch somebody's eye."

He is 18, preparing to finish high school, hoping to go to the University of Washington in the fall. He showed passion, a drive to make a difference in somebody's life, to make society better.

I appreciated seeing that most of all.

The newspaper is "a great opportunity," Herts told me. It gives him a chance to dispel stereotypes.

"People can be very judgmental toward street kids, and then have a different point of view about kids with a roof over their heads.

"We're all human."

Sometimes we just need to be reminded, and that's your job. Thanks for doing it well.

P-I columnist Candy Hatcher can be reached at 206-448-8320 or candyhatcher@seattlepi.com