Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to get published in newspaper?

Every newspaper needs reporters.

Go to an event, take pics, write a story, and submit them.

Editors want someone they can rely on to deliver good articles within the publishing deadlines. Its better to do one good story on time with a good lead sentence than a great story late with a bad lede. And you have to do it every week or day.

A small local daily or weekly or alternative weekly is the place to start.

The other thing a good jr reporter needs, is a good editor - mom or dad or another adult to look the story over.

Its fine to focus on kid stuff, but the adult stuff is the bread and butter.

I think this is a great time to get into journalism. The newspaper and local news is in structural decline so a rebirth is due in a few years!!!

She submitted her 2nd letter to the editor on Monday, and was SO excited when she opened the newspaper today to find her letter in it! For over 1000 entries to the paper, I'd say getting one in on her second try is pretty good! Now she has to wait a month, and is going to try to go straight to the huge papers. We'll see how that goes! Anyway, for the 13th largest paper in the US, I'd say this is a good sign! I think the main thing she was happy about was that she beat out lots of people at least 2 times her age!

Thanks for your help everyone.

Congratulations to your DD! It sounds like she's on her way

Very exciting!

CONGRATS to your DD!

My DD16 and DD15 started their journalism career when they were in middle school. We live in a city of 50,000 people where a weekly community newspaper fills the needs of local information. They published a few news reports such as robotic competition in middle schools and commentary on school bounds, stuff like that. When they enter high school, the newspaper offered them a column. 500-600 words every two weeks. They don�t get any money for doing that. The free weekly newspaper is not exactly rich. But there is no limitation either. Any topic is fine as long as they deliver every two weeks.

They ran with opportunity. Now three years later, they are still writing the bi-weekly column for all kinds of topics. This year, they even won the best column of Greater Bay Area Professional Journalism Award (non-dailies) this year. My DD16, now in college, considered that this is the best job ever.

My son also did articles for the local free paper, starting at age 13. They were very happy to have the material, and he was able to build a portfolio. He did this for a few years, until he decided he didn't care for journalism.

Some newspapers have a column written by a high school student. I know I had a good friend of mine in HS who wrote a column for our local paper. Maybe you could contact them and see if they have something along those lines? Maybe also ask her school too (I believe my friend got her column through connections at our school's newspaper).