 We're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech, and more specifically, this is Community Matters at the noon hour on a given Wednesday. And we are, we are so delighted to have a discussion today about journalism in the high schools and the colleges of Hawaii. And for that discussion, we have Cynthia Reeves. She is a media advisor or teacher and McKinley, am I right? Yes. And we have Larry Wayman, the same thing in Farrington High School. Hi, Larry. How are you? Go Govs. Thank you for that. And we have Tiffany Edwards Hunt. She's in Hilo. She's with UH and she's the editorial advisor for the Hilo newspaper on the UH campus there. Am I right? You are right. Mahalo. All right. All right. All right. All right. Okay. I want to know about journalism in the schools of Hawaii. I want to know that there's people, there are people coming up through these schools who are the journalists of the future, and they are going to save us in the face of public officials who do not tell us the truth. And they, these journalists will tell us the truth. Okay, Cynthia, you go first. How important is that? Well, I can tell you that the opinion, which is the student newspaper McKinley High School is about to start its 100th year next year. So that will be very challenging because how will we produce a newspaper when so much of what's going on events might not happen, access to students to interview. So it's very and a very exciting time for us to have our 100th anniversary. Um, our numbers have dropped. So I love the enthusiasm that you have. And I have a passion for student journalism. In the high schools, um, newspapers are dying. And I have a very small staff, but I have a very supportive administrator. And he says there will be opinion as, you know, as long as he is there, he is committed to continuing. It's a class. And so I really appreciate that. And it's what keeps me going every year. I get mostly a new bunch of students. And I have two goals. One is to produce a newspaper, but two is to make sure that they understand journalism. Um, if they want to be a journalist, but even more importantly, that they understand the role that journalism plays in our democracy so that they can be, um, um, an educated consumer of media. Yeah, at the very least, they should, they should know when I was a kid, we all, we had classes on how to fold the New York Times. You got to fold it this way in this way. So you could read it the subway. That was the reason now there are many other lessons you have to learn. So Larry, what, what about Farrington? Do you see upcoming journalists there? Do they have the passion? Do they read the newspaper? Every once in a while, I find one. I ask them often what they read. And, uh, USA Today is often mentioned, uh, the star advertiser, of course, because we get a free copy to the room every, every day, which I really appreciate. Um, and then we, we start working from there with the other online papers. Um, do they read it? Uh, it depends on what I happened to point out to them, uh, that I would like them to read, uh, in terms of, they like some of the sections, uh, whether it be, uh, sports or, uh, the front page. Um, they like honest, honest stories. They don't, they don't like stories that try to get them to think one way or the other, at least in a very obvious way, but they like factual information that they can trust. And they're very, very perceptive in recognizing what's phony and what's not. Uh, so, uh, I, I'm learning a lot from them, especially when I try to do something phony with them. They'll call me out on it. Oh, wonderful. I love that. Maybe if we do another show, you bring one or two of them with you. I would love to. And we can see what that made of, you know? But you know, that's, that's the problem that Cindy and, Cindy and I've talked about a number of times. Our students here in Hawaii are shy, uh, and they're very respectful. Uh, and they have been, it has been communicated to them that, uh, they defer to their elders and with my gray hair or loss of it, uh, they, they see what I am as an elder and they, uh, often don't think they have anything of value to say. Uh, and so that's one of my biggest jobs and one of Cindy's jobs, I'm sure, is to convince them that they have something to say and then to put it on paper or on the screen so that they can say it and get the kind of positive feedback that is necessary for those of us who are journalists. How do you do that, Larry? I, I, I wouldn't plan on asking you this question, but it does, uh, it does present as a very important question. How do you do that? You know, when I came to Hawaii in 1965, I was in the, I was in the service and the government assigned me the job of going around the high schools and teaching kids about the draft. Okay. So I went to a number of high schools in that, in that trip and I, and I can relate to what you was saying because I started every single class where I was supposed to teach them about the draft and I asked them the question. I said, in what year did they have the war of 1812? That's what I said. And every silence crickets. Nobody wanted to take a chance. You know, it was a trick question. So, you know, my point is they were very quiet and we have to make them less quiet. We have to force them to talk and I offer you the thought about silence. You know, you asked them a question about what their thoughts are on a given subject and then you go silent and you and the whole class wait for them to fill in the silence, you know. What do you do to get them activated? You show them your passion. I know Cindy does. She has a remarkable group that she often brings with her to different places. I have several kids in my class. My problem is that they have so many things that they're doing. They're, they're so overwhelmed with their various responsibilities or their various interests that it's trying to find for them to find a place to, to put this and to then actually write down or what they're thinking or record what they're thinking. When they're given an opportunity, they will though. And if they know that they're in a safe place, they will. And they do have very, very profound insights and profound strategies for sharing that and saw insights on occasions when necessary. Yeah. Talk about Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton. It's in the play. What happened to Hamilton is he could write and he made his career in his life out of writing. That was his success point. And I think it's true for our time as well. So let's go to you, Tiffany. Let's talk about you and UH, you know. I attended a course in a class in the journalism program at the School of Communications on Manoa. And I was interested to see that the students really knew what was going on in the community, but they were shy to make a telephone call. They were shy to get their elbows in. They were shy to dig down one level and, you know, and really push for information. Am I right about that? Oh, most definitely. What I would, what I would like to add to this conversation is that UH Hilo is different than, than UH Manoa in that UH Manoa has a journalism program. UH Hilo does not. We have a couple of reporting and news writing classes through the communication department. So what I experience with Keikawa Haya is students of various majors who are interested in the news, but yet at the same time, they don't know yet that it's something that they can have a career in. And so like Larry just said, every now and then somebody comes along and you can just tell they're a natural. And so it's, it's really exciting when that happens. What is a challenge is the fact that we have a lot of compliant students who haven't learned skills in critical thinking. I find that very dangerous because it leads us to where I think we are right now with our nation. I think you and I must be related. Yeah. I mean, we could go on at length about that. So what I like to do is try to teach them about that, about being critical thinkers, about how dissent is not disrespect, how we really need to ask questions and get fully behind something in order to form an informed opinion, or just to tell the story in all the different ways that it's presented. And so it's, it's really exciting to be able to see the spark happen when it, when there is one. I also feel like we're training people just to be more critical thinkers in the end. If, if I can't find my journalists in the bunch, then I'm at least teaching them how to be bold and something that I'm fighting against is this email interviewing, text interviewing, and the way that they, they just kind of like want to passively try to receive. Now I'm sure we're related. Yeah. So those are some things that I'm up against. And I'm sure our other advisors here on the panel are up against is just having a cultural reserve to them and not wanting to be disrespectful. And then also the modern way of just not really being assertive. But isn't it true, and this goes back to Larry too, isn't it true that if you are a journalist in, you know, in a journalistic position, you look at the world differently. It's a, it's a profession, even in high school, it's a profession. And you, you're catching things. The average person doesn't catch because there's an obligation on you. There's a burden on you to interpret those things for others. And the idea of being in that position of interpreting the facts and the community for others makes you look at the world differently, makes you look at yourself differently. Yeah, that's, I think we have to inculcate that. What did you say Larry? That's the point. I have one journalist who wrote a story on rail. And we handed out the issue of the newspaper at a school community council meeting that was the first time we had done that. And they happened to have, coincidentally, representative from the rail who was going to give them a rosy scenario, how things are going. But we had a story in the newspaper that simply said there are neighbors of the rail on Dillingham have, have some issues. They didn't make that kind of a in-your-face sort of look what is happening. Here are some of the issues the neighbors have. And they said it in a very specific way in a very truthful way, which caused the representative from rail to put aside his speech he had prepared and having to address those issues that the student had raised. Afterwards, the head of the SEC came over and said, you know, your newspaper gives us a perspective of what's happening in the world that we don't get from the other newspapers. We see it in a totally different way. And I shared that with the kids. And I said, look, you guys have something really important to say because nobody else is saying it. And you're saying it in such a way that nobody else notices except for you. And just to constantly, in terms of getting their interest in their subject again, constantly reinforcing the fact that what they're saying is something significant. And they themselves are significant in saying it. Yeah, thought leaders. So let's go to 1529 for a moment. 1529 is a bill that failed in this particular session. We're provided for greater, what, greater academic freedom for journalism in the high schools anyway, maybe at UH2. I'm not sure, Tiffany, you have to tell us. But Cindy, can you talk about it? What happened with 1529? Did you put it in? Is there an organization of teachers that put it in? How did it get there? We started this about three years ago. I am in communication with journalism educators around the country. And three or four years ago, I heard this term new voices. And it's states all around the country are introducing bills like HP 1529. 14 states already have them. And so all of these individual groups in different states have started working together to provide support for each other. So the first year, a few of us went to see Representative Woodson, Justin Woodson, and he suggests that we start with the BOE because Hawaii is unique in that we only have one board of education. So we started with the BOE. They do have a policy for student publications. And their response was, our policy is fine. And so we went back to Representative Woodson and Representative Takashi Ono was the one who actually sponsored the bill. And that was last year, not this session, but the session before, and it ended up not getting a hearing. So it just sort of sputtered. And then so this year was awesome. It really moved so far. And I believe that had it not been for COVID-19, I think it would have gone all the way, which would be amazing. Washington state is the most recent state to pass a bill like this. It took them almost a decade. Why is it necessary to have a bill? I mean, it surprises me to hear that there's a need for this. Are the schools not providing the academic freedom that these student journalists need to write freely? What's the problem? My interest was, I just think that what the bill says is something that we as a state should espouse. McKinley High School, I have no problem with my administration. They do not prior review or prior restraint. The bill would only not allow prior restraint. The administrator cannot stop an article from being published unless it is liable. There's a couple of reasons that they could stop a story. But right now, the law of the land is administrators could stop a story for legitimate pedagogical concerns. It's very vague. Do they stop stories? Are there funny duties out there in DOE that stop stories? I'm the president of Hawaii Scholastic Journalism Association and I do hear some stories. Not a lot. However, just because they don't hear stories doesn't mean they're not happening because you think about the position of a student in a school. They don't have power. You think about their advisor. Their advisor, that's her job. She doesn't have a lot of power. So just because I don't hear a lot of censorship stories doesn't mean they're not happening because to push back against administration is putting the students, the advisor perhaps in jeopardy. But even if there is no censorship happening, it could happen. My administrator is very supportive. But if he were to leave the school and someone else were to come in, if there were outside pressure, right now the law allows him to censor things. And this bill would provide protection. There are certain reasons he can censor material and they're clearly spelled out. Tiffany, what is the situation at UH? Is it like that? No. In fact, the reading of the bill, I interpret it to not apply to college campuses, but I definitely support it in that this provides experiential learning for high school students and then it better prepares them for the collegiate setting. I just believe in the press and teaching students how to speak their truth as early on as possible. For UH Hilo and for colleges, the practice recommended by college media advisors is not to have prior review. In fact, it is a liability for us if we do. So it's all about teaching them how to report the news accurately and not have to show them how to mop it up when they get it wrong. Very important. You want to allow them the freedom to censor their own work, to not write things that'll get everybody in trouble. And that's part of the course, isn't it? You could reflect that in their grade, by the way. The bill has a line that says what you just said. I mean, this bill does not say that teachers cannot teach. Proper journalistic standards cannot grade the students on that. It just says that an administrator cannot censor a student's work in a school newspaper unless they can demonstrate that it violates the principles in the bill. Well, you know, it's very important to have a real journalistic experience in the schools, not only in UH, but in the high schools. And it strikes me that we have to build journalists on the assumption that there will be careers for them when they get out of school. They have to be in a funny way that they'd be better trained than the average student to appreciate the world we live in. To make accurate reporting, you have to know what's going on. You have to study it. And any reporter who doesn't know the subject is going to fail the story. So my question to you, Larry, is other jobs out there doesn't seem like it. You know, the ASTAR advertiser knocked off about half their reporters, including investigative reporters. And they're going to have trouble finding jobs. Kevin Dayton found something recently at Civil Beat that was good. Some of them are going to leave the state. That's bad. What do you say to those kids who say, you know, come on, Mr. Wayman, why are we studying this when we can never get a job in the area? What do you say to them? Oh my goodness. For me, it's a matter of what in philosophy they call agency. And that is the sense that they, it's almost like that poem in Victus. I am the master of my faith, the captain of my soul, or the other way around, whatever it goes. It's what they have to say is so significant and important that if they don't say it, nobody else may. And so they have to. There are jobs out there. I'm really proud of one of my former students who's working with Pacific Business Review now. And she's a graduate from University of Missouri where journalism began as a discipline. And so there is that route where one can go to university and work and buy luck and buy lots of shoe leather or flip-flop leather, whatever it is, one's feetwear is made of. It takes that kind of persistence and that kind of stubbornness, but also the reputation that one is well trained as a writer and one is well experienced in thinking and in observing what is going on around them. So no matter what field a student decides to go into, the skills of observation of critical thinking, of establishing relationships with people to pull out from them in a rather socratic way, maybe, what they're thinking and what's important and to recognize that this is significant if for no other reason than the fact that they are there getting the story. They are part of the story even if they can't find one around them. They are the part of the story. You know that sounds like what people say about law school. You don't necessarily have to practice law for one day, but going to law school gives you a better appreciation of the stories around you. Reading those thousands of cases in the course of law school is like meeting thousands of people and finding out what happened to them and why we should care. So I think you're preparing people not only to be journalists in whatever area of journalism, but also to be good citizens and vote correctly, vote at least with being fully informed. So Tiffany, what do you say to them when they come to you on your paper? What do you say to them to encourage them to go into journalism or do you not do that? Do you want them to be journalists? Do you want them to look for a job? Because if there are no jobs here, that means leaving for the mainland, doesn't it? And I suspect a few of them have or will leave for the mainland. What do you say to them to try to shape their career goals? I stir them to journalismjobs.com and I encourage them to go work in some podunk town and be a general assignment reporter if they want to feel that feeling. I can tell you that I have a student who writes for NFL. It was his dream to be a sports agent. He started out as a sports editor, became the editor-in-chief and went on to get his master's. And Anthony Holzman Escarino looked for him. And then I had another student who went back to her home state of Alaska and she started her own newspaper right around the same time that I was doing my own alternative publication on the side here on Hawaii Island. I really think that it is possible to, I went to the University of Wyoming. So I come from an area that has a lot of podunk newspapers. And so I still believe that those are possible. I was able to successfully do it with the Big Island Chronicle. Every now and then I get the desire to go back into it and I think I could pull it off. The smaller you are, you can do this. And so that's what I tell my students. I also tell them that, look, this is the way that we're doing journalism now. And there's a lot of citizen journalists who have these and they're operating. And so the better equipped they are to give accurate information, to seek truth, to be respectful, to follow the code of ethics. I just feel like we're giving them tools to be able to either become citizen journalists, to go do civil beat. Look, we got civil beat. Thankfully, Omidyar has funded that operation. But we're still looking for ways to be innovative with this profession that we know is newsprint. But here we are having an interview on think tech Hawaii. So times are changing and the more that we can adapt with this change and that we as educators can get better at these things. I really feel like journalism is just transforming kind of like our own profession of teaching is transforming. That's changing, isn't it? Think tech is a bunch of citizen journalists. So we understand this, but from a citizen in a voluntary point of view. And that's a problem if you want to make a career out of it. So Cindy, let me ask you something. I mean, we have a problem in this country. The press has declined. Despite Tiffany's affinity for small town newspapers, thousands of them have folded and will continue to fold. And you'll see consolidation on the network side where they cover the same stories all day long. And they don't cover the little stories that sort of give you texture about what is happening in our world. It's really, really important that we reimagine journalism. And my question to you is how we're going to do that. You definitely are involved in one aspect of it, but there are other aspects too. What we need is to refresh the whole industry, the whole profession, so that it is the fifth column, so that it does participate in government. And so that it makes us all more acutely aware of our obligations as citizens. How are we going to do that? This is not an easy question, but you can answer in two minutes. Well, I think what I would say is what the other two advisors also said is, you know, when I introduce myself and the course to my students, we're going to, you know, I'm going to meet them in about two weeks. Most of them join the class because they like to write. They don't know what journalism is. And so I want them to understand what journalism is. I see it, as Tiffany said, as a course in critical thinking. I see it as civics education. I also want them to know it's a career pathway. We have broadcast media in our school, so that is that area of job growth is higher than in print media. But I lost what I was going to say. I think that they don't understand how the press is such a part of democracy. And once they learn some of that history, it's really transformative for them to understand how they could play a role. And if not them, then how journalists are playing a role because journalists are often seen as the enemy. And I feel like so many of our students come in thinking that journalists intend to be biased and and subjective and giving them a chance to read journalism, to meet journalists, to see why journalists do what they do, is such a valuable contribution to media literacy. And it's going to help these students when they leave us, regardless of what they do. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that the idea that the current administration calls journalists fake news and he calls journalists the enemies of the people, which is about the most most obnoxious possible characterization that one could ever make in a democracy. We don't have any more time left. But I want to ask all you guys the same question to close. And that is, I guess I'll start with you, Cindy, again. What is the most important story of our time? Well, obviously, now it's COVID. And I just think that student journalists are the ones who can tell that story. I am going to be in my room either with no students, but definitely not interacting with the other teachers as much as I do. The students are going to be the ones who are going to see this story and they have to be able to tell this story. Okay, let's go to you, Tiffany. You can say the same answer, but you can change the answer or you can give me the first two most important stories of our time. I think I'm going to go with this idea of inequality that is, is just our nation is exploding right now, whether it's trying to make amends for the past by removing people's names from national monuments or references to being the founder, as in the case of Planned Parenthood. There's just, we're witnessing history in the making amid a pandemic. So I guess I would reiterate what Cynthia said and then add to the facts that we're seeing our president of the United States sending unidentified Department of Homeland Security representatives to take over major cities in order to combat people who are petitioning their government for redress. We're in this, in something that I would have never predicted, but 1984 just seems like it's, it's 2020. Okay, well now I'm really convinced that we must be related. Okay, Larry, it's up to you now as we, we need it from the 50,000 foot level from the gray hair point of view, from all learned and seen and taught and heard and what is your view of the most important story? All of the above that they've said. For me, the most important story is the agency of the reporter. My ideal, I bore Cindy with this story all the time, of a little girl in the Midwest someplace, I think it's Idaho or someplace, she decided to write, to prepare or produce a story, a newspaper about her neighborhood and she would walk up and down the streets and collecting story about a dog or a garbage collection or whatever and write as a weekly story and weekly newspaper and deliver it for free to the people on that street. After a while, people got really interested in what she was doing, so she would branch out into other streets. Her father happened to be a journalist, by the way, but this is a passion that she has this little girl, eight or nine years old, going around starting a newspaper telling the truth about where she is and recognizing that she has the ability and the power and the freedom to do that and to do it in a way that tells the truth and for me, that's what I want to communicate to my students. No matter what they write, I want them to tell the truth and I want them to make a difference and they want to address the values of justice and peace and empathy and all of that that makes us a community and a society. Oh my god, I'm so touched by your comments. All of you, we need a hundred million of you and a hundred million of those kids. That's what we need. Thank you so much. I love you all, even you Larry, I love you too. Thank you for being here. I hope, I hope we can get you to come back individually with some of your students as I mentioned and do further shows on this topic and beyond. Thank you Cynthia. Thank you Tiffany. Thank you Larry Wyman. Take care. Thank you.