News you can use

This morning I had the pleasure of working with Mr. S's journalism class. To give the students a taste of real-world journalism, the class puts out a newspaper every month. With every issue, they sharpen their skills - they're working their way into being real-life, hard-boiled newsmen who eat tacks for breakfast and wash them down with vinegar. Or something like that. Mr. S. kindly asked if I would draw upon my previous experiences in the media and say something useful, so I tried. Once upon a time I was copy editor, then copy chief, then editor-in-chief of my college newspaper, The News Record. At the time it was published three times a week and had a circulation of well into the thousands. Because we were self-funded we received no material support from the university and it gave us a rather broad freedom. That being said, however, all journalists are supposed to enjoy broad freedoms, as are in fact all Americans living under the protection of the Bill of Rights. There has been some exciting debate on campus lately, fueled in part by some opposing viewpoints on the opinion page, and that's perhaps the best lesson of all: that the things we think and write and share with others affect the people around us. Words have worth. Pick the good ones!