By Saul Janiak-Stein and Nelson Kerr-Ritchie
Since President Trump’s inauguration last January, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has been deployed to various cities across America in an operation to “end illegal immigration, take criminal aliens off our streets, protect the American taxpayer, and Make America Safe Again,” according to the Department of Homeland Security website. Cities like Portland, Chicago, New York, Charlotte, Durham and most recently, Minneapolis have been large centers of ICE activity.
After the two deadly shootings of Minneapolis natives, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, protesting in the city and across Minnesota has increased significantly.
Street protests, speaking out on social media and even writing in the school newspaper are all ways that citizens have spoken out and voiced their opinion about the whole situation.
The current political environment is very heated and often one group that we might not hear from nearly as much is students in the high school range.
The Roosevelt Standard is a local Minneapolis school newspaper at Roosevelt High School. On the front page of their website, the paper also features many other articles that one would expect, including columns about the school sports team, where students like to go to lunch and features about changes made to school safety measures.
However, after one incident involving ICE agents in front of the school, the newspaper shifted their focus to report about what happened and offer their own opinion on the matter. The school newspaper went into overdrive, producing opinion pieces on ICE, reports on school walkouts and informational pieces on school safety changes, and what community members can do during this time. Six major pieces on ICE are visible on their website alone.
Large newspapers will sometimes have opportunities for young adults or students to write an opinion piece that will be run or featured in the paper. But besides these rare occurrences, and the occasional social media political post, high schoolers’ opinions are often not a vocal presence in the daily media cycle.
Some high schools today have school newspapers like The Roosevelt Standard that report on issues or happenings in the school. Often this is limited to sports, teacher profiles or student opinions. However, the importance of these papers is beyond that. Students are given a platform to express their opinions for the local community to hear, something that mainstream media fails to do.
With much news being online today, physical newspapers are on the decline. But even students who are reliant on technology do not spend as much time getting up to date on the news. According to the Journal of Children and Media, 57% of teens are considered “news minimalists,” and rarely actively search for news. News outlets like The Roosevelt Standard serve as media that specifically serves a student audience ensuring that they will be interested in reading articles, which promotes the distribution of awareness.
In one of those articles the high school claims that ICE was acting aggressively. The students writing the article clearly didn’t feel pressure from outside sources on how to report the situation. Their newspaper served as a way for students to properly report the event to the school’s community. This serves as a great example of the unique ability of school newspapers to publicize student opinions, whether in a crisis or not. And without these school papers, those young voices might stay silent.
