What is the mission of your organization?
With nearly 900 members, ASNE is the principal organization of American newspaper editors. It is active in a number of areas, including open government, freedom of the press, journalism credibility and ethics, newsroom management, diversity and readership.

What age, class, racial, religious, and ethnic groups do your organization work with?
ASNE is a leader in diversifying U.S. newsrooms and strives to increase the number of women and minorities serving in those newsrooms so that it matches the makeup of the U.S. population. We work with the minority journalism associations and journalism foundations to advance these goals and conduct an annual national survey of newspaper newsrooms to see how we're doing.

What are the main facilities, resources and services you make available to young people interested in working in media?
We have recently launched www.highschooljournalism.org to reach out to young people and encourage them to enter journalism.

How would children and young people make contact with your organization?
Chiefly through our highschooljournalism.org material, but Craig Branson and Kevin Wilcox serve as the primary contact for the organization. Branson for the high school project and Wilcox for general ASNE information and journalism information.

What made you originally want to start working with young people?
We determined that today's young people are tomorrow's journalists and we pondered the best way to reach these people. For example, high school experiences was a major reason African Americans put down for becoming journalists. Once we saw that, we realized we weren't reaching them early enough with our college outreach.

How are young people using new technologies to help them gain access to public forums and be more effective media makers?
They are using computers to produce their newspapers and Web sites, thus intimately engaged in the tools of journalism.

What do you see as the obstacles young producers of media face in gaining access to television, film, video, and print?
For print, our primary focus, the obstacles aren't primarily monetary (although, that's clearly a problem), but often are problems of administration or lack of connection to a partner in the community to provide mentors. We are, for example, providing grants to needy journalism programs annually to help build these relationships with daily newspapers and provide capital to buy technology for production (cameras, computers, etc.)

Do you believe there is bias in the dominant media toward young people and their interests and issues? What is it?
Editors and newspapers want to help newspapers, but haven't really had the tools to reach them effectively without a lot of effort. I think teens and young people perceive that the media is biased against them. I would argue that most teens are just not visible to newspapers and broadcasters until thrust into the limelight.

How do you think the Internet and other technologies are influencing young media makers?
It makes it easier for them to get their message across — and cheaper. It also makes it easier for them to sample diverse points of view. Small-town, Midwestern teens now have access to Le Monde, The Times of India and the Los Angeles Times in addition to their local newspaper. The same goes for broadcast.

What are your organizations success stories working with young media producers?
Our grant program has been a success already, if only by partnering newspapers with high schools in their communities. Click here for a list of those Affiliateships.

What will be the most serious challenges facing young media journalists in the future?
Overcoming clutter, lack of time and lack of community. Because of the splintering of media, there is little that adheres communities together beyond a daily newspaper. How does one reach a community like that with an authoritative and credible voice?

What do you think can be done to make young people more media literate?
First, show them what can happen if they rely on one medium or outlet exclusively. This is often eye-opening (just as showing someone the difference between whitehouse.gov and whitehouse.com is eye-opening when conducting Web searches — consider the source).

But also key is to include them in the process of creating news. If they are part of a school newspaper, for example, even if they don't become journalists, they are more likely to understand the issues journalists face.
 

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