Other speakers included: Warren Watson, director of J-Ideas; Randy Swikle, former Dow Jones Newspaper Fund teacher of the year from Johnsburg, Ill.; and Betsy Ahlersmeyer, journalism teacher and adviser at Burris High School in Muncie, Ind.
“You are professionals ready for our business,” said Stines, the president of Mass2One Inc., and the former president of the International Newspaper Marketing Association, in pointing out that the business side could represent a career vocation. “You are professional high school newspaper men and women.”

Stines and Ahlersmeyer both stressed that a business-oriented student newspaper must have a strong ad-sales effort.
“Ads are the lifeblood of the newspaper,” Ahlersmeyer said. “You have to have a well thought-out policy and plan on how you will reach potential customers. “A good salesperson works hard, has self confidence, self discipline and is always flexible.”
She said that student ad salespeople should be prepared, call ahead and make a good impression with potential clients. “Look your best. Ratty jeans and belly-button rings don’t cut it,” she said.

Ahlersmeyer also stressed that a publication staff must develop an astute business plan. That means listing all your income and understanding all your expenses, from printing to mailing to computer software.

Promotion and Marketing-----
Swikle, who speaks nationally on high school journalism topics for the Journalism Education Association and other groups, offered suggestions on how to raise the student newspaper’s profile in the school and the community (see sidebar). Many of his suggestions came from his experiences at Johnsburg High, a school near Chicago that regularly been recognized for its First Amendment focus and journalism excellence. “The First Amendment was valued in everything we did at the (Johnsburg) school,” he said.

Swikle stressed that student editors need to develop good working relationships with the school principal and the teaching staff in order to publish freely. “It all comes through the development of trust and accountability, he said.

In the opening session, Watson reviewed the results of a national survey of attitudes about the First Amendment on the part of high school students. The survey of 112,000 students and more than 8,000 teachers and administrators, sanctioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, showed that America’s high schools are leaving the First Amendment behind.

“Students don’t understand nor do they have strong feelings about our most basic freedoms,” Watson said. “Schools need to do a better job of teaching the First Amendment and allow students to practice it with their student publications.”

But Watson said the “student media is endangered.” He said that more than 20 percent of U.S. high schools have no student media at all today, with many closing down newspapers and other media within the last five years.
The Knight study is “a call to action,” Watson said.

He added that high school newspapers that are run in a solid business-like fashion are better suited to survive, trumpeting the theme of the daylong workshop.

Series of Seminars Planned----
The Harrisburg seminar was a pilot for a series of similar workshops that J-Ideas will conduct beginning in the fall.
The program plans four, one-day regional training sessions that will circle the nation. Although sites have not been finalized, J-Ideas plans workshops for the east and west coasts, the south and midwest, respectively. The goal: to make available business-side training to as many high school students and advisers as possible

The workshops will be funded through a grant from the Oklahoma-based Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

Past archived features

JIDEAS to offer Business Journalism workshops

Terry Nelson

The Endangered Student Media

Sunshine Week Commentary: Singing the First Amendment Blues