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Why these teens want to be journalists

By Daniela Gerson
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Get up at dawn on a Saturday morning? As a teenager? About 200 high school students did just that on Saturday to hone their journalism skills.

Students from 37 schools congregated at Cal State Northridge on Saturday morning for a high school journalism conference. They came from all over Southern California: South Los Angeles from Compton to West Adams, the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, Orange County and Ventura.

To hone their journalism skills, students participated in reporting contests and workshops on such topics as covering sports, education, data and Spanish-language reporting. The Los Angeles Times’ High School Insider co-sponsored the conference, along with CSUN, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Southern California Journalism Education Assn.

Why train to be a journalist at a time of uncertainty for the industry? Here is what the students had to say:

Follow me on Twitter at @dhgerson

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Daniela Gerson

Daniela Gerson was a community engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times. She left in 2016. As a journalist and educator, her work focuses on multiethnic communities and innovations in participatory media. She was previously the director of the Civic Engagement and Journalism Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School. Gerson was the founding editor of Alhambra Source, a research-based site investigating how local news can foster civic engagement. She also developed Reporter Corps, a program to train young adults to report on their own communities. Gerson has contributed to the Financial Times Magazine, the New York Times, PRI’s The World, Der Spiegel, WNYC, and was a staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun. Daniela is the recipient of Alexander von Humboldt and Arthur F. Burns fellowships. A graduate of Brown University and USC Annenberg, she speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and can get by in German and Hebrew.

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