Public recognition for journalism

Colleagues,
This article appeared in The Wenatchee World on Monday, Nov. 21, as a column by the managing editor of the community newspaper. His son is one of my newspaper students. It was a special treat. (I'd send just a link, but the Web site requires a paid subscription.)

This article is about my school and my students and me, but it just as easily could describe dozens -- hundreds -- of situations across the nation. It's pretty rare to have such prominent acknowledgement of an academic activity.

I don't send this to toot a horn or pat a back. I share it as a Thanksgiving wish, a wish that everyone could attain the professional situation we desire and that others would recognize in public your talents and the success of your work. I'm thankful to have an opportunity every day to do good things, to work with good students and to know good people here and around the country.

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A high school legacy, in print

By Gary Jasinek, World managing editor

The staff of Wenatchee High School’s student newspaper, The Apple Leaf, was gathering Thursday morning in Room 262 for its daily class in advanced journalism.

Their teacher and adviser, Logan Aimone, got their attention at the front of the room. He held up a proof of the coming edition’s opinion section, where several staffers had contributed columns.

“This just drips with voice,” he told the staff. “Anybody who reads this will know that these are teenagers with something to say.”

That they are.

These teenagers with something to say at Wenatchee High School received the highest honor in high school journalism the week before last, when they won their second-consecutive Pacemaker award at a national high school journalism convention in Chicago. Only a couple of dozen student papers in the country received that honor this year.

More impressive: The Apple Leaf is one of only five papers to have won the award — considered the high school journalism equivalent of a Pulitzer — each of the past two years.

Two national titles in a row? If this were a sports team, people would be talking dynasty.

Actually, the team concept is more than an analogy here. With Aimone’s guidance for the past eight years, the Apple Leaf staff has developed a culture that would be the envy of any ambitious squad seeking glory on a court or field instead of on pages of newsprint.

It begins with the expectation of excellence, it’s extended by recruiting talent, and it’s nourished by a school administration wise enough to not meddle with success.

Junior Nick Feldman, The Apple Leaf’s editor in chief, said high expectations are set from Day 1. “Aimone always begins the year reminding us that we have a legacy,” he said, sitting at a classroom table with Managing Editor Kelly MacDonald, a senior.

(Full-disclosure interruption: I know several of these kids through my son, Adam, who’s the Apple Leaf’s photo editor.)

MacDonald agreed about the tone Aimone sets. “The Apple Leaf is very important to him,” she said. “He expects us to do the best we can.”

More powerful than a coach’s expectations are teammates’ sense of obligation to each other. Aimone says that’s a powerful force on The Leaf’s staff.

“Nobody wants to be the kid who lets the team down,” he said, recalling the edition last year in which the centerpiece feature was, in his words and in the opinion of the staff, “a real dog. The kids just beat themselves up over it.”

To engage in that sort of discerning self-critique, the kids themselves need to be accomplished and wise enough to recognize quality, and its opposite.

That starts with recruiting and developing talent. Aimone identifies promising next-year players primarily through his beginning journalism class — where “I have the chance to teach journalism without the pressure of publication” — and through an honors English class he teaches, as well as referrals from other teachers.

With a circulation of 1,900, The Apple Leaf has the ability to inform and engage and, at times, stir things up. That’s when the independence of a student paper becomes crucial.

Aimone recalled the edition in 2002 that dealt frankly with sexual issues and included a graphic that was instructional in the use of condoms. A controversy ensued.

The principal at that time asked to see six subsequent editions before publication under a policy that says the administration “can review,” not that it “must review.” Currently, the administration chooses not to.

“Without someone looking over our shoulder, we have thrived,” Aimone said. When the administration becomes the editor, “students lose interest and the publication loses respect. Plus, it’s an insult to the classroom teacher. No other teachers are asked to submit students’ work or lesson plans for approval.”

Then again, few other teachers have the opportunity to impart the lessons that can come from the challenges of creating a real newspaper.

Aimone seems driven to make the most of that opportunity.

His students sense that drive. They appreciate it.

“He’s passionate,” said MacDonald, “and his passion inspires us.”

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Gary Jasinek’s column appears on Mondays. Reach him at jasinek@wenworld.com or at 665-1176.