Just 27% of schools have a school newspaper as stated by Baruch College, and that is very worrying. In today’s time, many people don’t know how to separate misinformation from actual information. This becomes especially worrying due to the fact that now we are all scrolling through our phones. The constant scrolling could make us not think critically about the content we are watching, leading us to believe everything we see, even if it might not be true. Social media, unlike actual newspapers, doesn’t have all the rules and regulations that stop false information from being spread even if every newspaper has different rules and regulations in place. This also does not take into account that most people will not do further research on the topic to get the full picture of what the whole truth is.
A School newspaper can be beneficial, however like previously stated just 27% of schools have a newspaper for their school. The City University of New York conducted a study to see how many schools have a newspaper and what race was prevalent in those schools. In that study, they found that high schools with a majority White and Asian student population were more likely to have a school newspaper than in schools with a majority Black and Latino student population. This is very unsettling because this means that Black and Latino students aren’t getting all the opportunities to learn and practice important reading and comprehension skills that would help them in life that they would be able to get with a school newspaper. However, other factors that may influence reading and comprehension skills, to be fair.
Why is it important to have a school newspaper, and how can it be beneficial?
School newspapers play a crucial role in fostering critical thinking, media literacy, and informed citizenship among students. A school newspaper can improve students’ reading skills, however that is only if they read the school newspaper. Students making the newspaper articles will have to think about topics they want to write about, and what information they will include about that topic. Students that read the article will have to critically read these articles to get information on the topic and come to their own conclusion. It will also make students look for the whole truth on a topic and not just one particular perspective. With the students making the articles searching for the whole truth, the students reading it will also get the whole truth. Social media sites like Instagram, X, Tik Tok, and others are not enough to inform people about a topic because most of the time the information you get from them are biased in some way. A school newspaper will have information from various sources meaning that there will be information being repeated, but it will also have more information that would give students the whole picture on a topic.
A school newspaper is also beneficial because most students already do not get news making them uninformed on certain topics that they should know about because the topic pertains to the area they live in, or the topic affects their lives in a good or bad way. Just having a school newspaper will give students that information that they normally would not be getting with just social media.