Conifer High School has a student-led program that allows students to write news, features, opinions/reviews, and sports stories that have a connection to the school or the world around them; this class is also known as “Online Media”. The 2024 newsroom consists of Editor in Chief, Alyson Meyers, two Section Editors, eleven reporters, as well as a team of videographers.
“The fun thing is that you can also write about whatever you want, including controversial topics like negative opinions. On parts of school, religious topics, drugs, pretty much anything,” freshman reporter Abigail Leidel said.
In class, students work on connecting with their peers, interviewing other students, and drafting and editing their stories. The student leaders, Alyson Meyers, Ellie Chase, and Amelia Hobgood start off class with an “icebreaker” question with all members of the class. Later, the class transforms into work time where students have time to work on their current article.
“We normally do circle time at the beginning. When preparing for a news cycle we brainstorm our ideas and possible stories. Then we plan interviews and we start setting up our stories once we have interviews in and then we get a few days to draft, edit, and then publish our stories,” freshman reporter Kaylea Pike said.
Newspaper and journalism is one of the few classes at Conifer High School that is completely student-led. Alyson Meyers, Ellie Chase, and Amelia Hobgood edit all the stories and grade all work done in class.
“Our editor-in-chief does a great job of editing and writing great stories. And you can count on her to catch every mistake, but sometimes I feel pressured to get stories turned in faster than I can write them,” senior reporter Leo Nickerson said.
Conifer High School uploads their stories to CHSToday.net as well as photos to their Instagram (@chssutdentmedia). The past team has earned a gold medal from the CSPA and “Best of SNO” for “outstanding coverage” during the 2021-2022 school year. They are also a member of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists which recognizes and encourages achievements in scholastic journalism.
“We have a bunch of awards. We’re one of the most award-winning programs in the schools, but we don’t have a trophy case,” Editor in Chief and Conifer senior Alyson Meyers said.
Newspaper is one of the electives at Conifer High School that has misleading or confusing course names, leading students to get pushed into the class or accidentally sign up. Monica Zoldowski, a freshman reporter, has written a story, “New Courses or New Names?”, which goes more in-depth about the title of classes and the problems that have been happening along with that.
“It was one of those things that I got thrown into accidentally. I actually didn’t know what the class was for. I thought it was a graphic design class because of the confusing class names. I was actually going to drop the class, but I decided to stick with it. I’m so glad I did because it’s the best way to experience high school,” Meyers said.
When participating in the class you receive an art credit and it is in progress to get an English credit as well. To graduate at Conifer High School you need at least 0.5 of an art credit.
“It’s something that I enjoy doing. It’s a cool way to get to know people that you would never get to know and to learn about things that you would never normally go into depth about. And it opened my eyes and made me realize that I want to be a journalist, and it’s something I’d like to continue in college and see where it goes from there,” Leidel said.
