In a reply email from one of the organisers, I was given the information about how young reporters works and it sounded far less interesting. It didn't really sound like something that was engaging or of much use to me, five of the other members of the magazine felt the same way. In a conversation with one of them, they said "It's not interesting because we can't write about anything controversial." which is true. The most exciting things we can write about are trees being cut down or a mildly exotic animal in the Thames. This will be of interest to some people but as teenagers we often like to rebel against the "social norms" of older generations making controversial topics, such as abortion, gay marriage and the ethics of artists selling music through sex, really interesting topics for us to write about.
However, this wouldn't be a problem, right? Surely we could just drop out of the scheme, no biggie. Wrong. What nobody had been told about was the charge. £100 just for the college to sign up plus £20 for each student. With seven of us signed up, that was £240 when we hadn't been given proper information for the scheme before signing up, leading six of us to change our minds. As far as I'm aware, my college was in fact charged a full £240, especially as I'm still on the e-mailing list for the scheme.
That's how I heard about this. An e-mail from one of the organisers. The e-mail stated that the article written on them by NUJ was misleading and incorrect but, in my opinion, one incorrect fact in an article on the scheme does not mean that people should dislike young reporters. The article stated that it costs £120 for students to take part in the scheme and it was made to sound, in the opening of the article, as if this was the cost per student. However, further on in the article it is explained that the cost is £100 for the school/college to sign up and £20 additionally for students. Personally, I still think this cost is outrageous.
In summary, my feelings on the scheme are that it is overpriced, misleading and of little interest to students. They claim to give good experience to students but I have gained far more experience on my college's student magazine and pod cast. Now, I fully accept not all schools and college have the facilities to run a pod cast, ours is quite... all over the place and badly organised. But there is not reason that a school/college can't have a student run magazine. If students are willing to run it, you need one staff member who will oversee the running of the magazine. Students can then use their own initiative to then produce the magazine with a team of editors and the availability for all students to write their articles and get published. The school/college is then responsible to decide if this is printed or virtual meaning there is no reason for it to cost money as it can be left on the Internet rather than printed. This allows students so much more freedom in subjects they cover as well as a larger readership because we can write about abortion, gay marriage and the ethics of artists selling music through sex, not a strange duck being spotted in the Thames.
Because as much as we don't want to write about that, others want to read about it even less.
Other things to read on this topic:
