After a decade-long hiatus, Forest Hills High School students relaunch newspaper
/
The Beacon, the student newspaper at Forest Hills High School, resumed printing last year after a 10-year hiatus, and is helping to train the next generation of journalists. Photo via The Beacon
By Ryan Schwach
There’s a beacon in the basement of Forest Hills High School in Queens. And for a decade, it shone no light.
But after a 10-year hiatus, The Beacon, the school’s student newspaper was recently revived and has been shining a light on issues affecting Forest Hills High School students all year.
The students that make up the intrepid next generation of reporters at The Beacon are a diverse group of upperclassmen working to rebuild a student publication completely from scratch, and simultaneously learning how to be local journalists in an ever-turbulent and complicated media landscape – and having quite a bit of fun along the way.
Despite the excitement, it’s been a big lift for the student crew and first-year faculty advisor to bring the paper back to life for the student body of nearly 4,000.
“There was nothing to work off of,” said Salma Baksh, a senior sitting at the helm as editor-in-chief of the newly formed Beacon. “We hadn’t had a paper in over a decade.”
It was also a new experience for Virginia McDermott, the English teacher who took over as faculty advisor. She told the Eagle she had to crack open some old college journalism textbooks to figure out where to get started.
“We're trying to figure it out,” she said. “[It has been] kind of crazy, but exciting at the same time.”
The paper is printed twice per school year – once around Winter Break and the other before school lets out in June. Overall, they’ve published four editions in 2023.
In June 2023, the team printed its first paper issue, an eight-pager with a front page story about the school’s theater production of Beauty and the Beast written by senior and head copy editor, Ren Nebet.
“I had a lot of fun doing that,” Nebet said about covering the school theater program, which they are also involved in.
The staff of the forest hills high school beacon. photo courtesy of the beacon
Nebet came to the paper by accident, winding up in the journalism class after a scheduling error. But after being placed in the class, they made the best out of it, enjoying their new behind-the-scenes look of their school.
Other students, including Baksh, found their way to the paper via a path not unfamiliar to many in the journalism profession – finding a love for writing and a hatred of math.
“I knew that STEM wasn't for me, and that I really liked writing,” said Baksh, who added that several teachers directed her toward journalism during her early years at the high school.
“English class and writing is something I've put a lot of time into, even if I was involved in other things,” she added.
What also drew Baksh was the newsroom environment, and the constant flow of ideas that came with working on a paper.
“I like to work in a team in a group setting where I could be engaging with people all the time,” she said. “I saw the newsroom as this creative space where everyone's bouncing off of each other and things are just being made and that really attracted me.”
Others, like The Beacon’s Assistant Editor-in-Chief Athena Vishudanand, were into journalism from an early age.
“I've always wanted to be a journalist,” she said. “I think it kind of started when I started to watch ‘Superman’ and ‘Supergirl,’ and I saw them being journalists. I kind of idolized that idea, and then just gave it a shot.”
After figuring out how to actually print a paper, then came the even harder part – getting people to read it.
“Whenever I talk about it, people are like ‘We have a school newspaper?’ No one really knows about it,” said op-ed Editor and junior Autumn Marin. “We had to establish a basis that wasn't just teachers, because as much as it's nice for teachers to read it, I feel like it represents the student body.”
Members of the Forest Hills student body read The Beacon’s first new print edition in 10 years. Photo via The Beacon/Instagram
After they published their first paper in June, the staff set a table out at the front of the school and tried to bring attention to the new Beacon.
“We camped out there the entire day and handed out papers,” said Marin.
The promotion process has also included using social media, and focusing their reporting on issues that affect the student body and ensuring that their voices are reflected in the stories The Beacon publishes.
“When students see things around the school and experience the events, I think that creates a connection,” said Baksh. “They'd like to hear more about those events especially if word of mouth goes around and people talk about it.”
The student staff at The Beacon is learning as they go, as have generations of student journalists before them, while also adapting to a changing landscape where kids in their generation no longer get their news in traditional ways.
“I don't think that we should shift to only consuming media that we find on social media, because that's not the news,” said Marin. I feel like there needs to be online news that’s actually credible.”
Ms. Mcdermott (left) and her students hand out the beacon at forest hills high school. photo via the beacon/instagram
Jackson O’Brien, The Beacon’s news editor, agrees.
“Our generation is shifting away from paper newspapers, but I feel like there's also an issue with them shifting toward only consuming news off of social media, and I think that although there are some people our age who can appreciate a paper newspaper, it's not going to be for everybody,” said O’Brien. “I think it's important that our generation understands the power of a reputable news source.”
Young reporters, like those on staff at The Beacon, are well positioned to help their own generation work out where, and how to get credible news that doesn’t dumb down the world’s complexities.
Despite the desire to have their classmates read their stories in print, The Beacon newsroom is also willing to meet their colleagues where they are. The rest of the news industry could also learn from them, they said.
“I think that ignoring the impact of social media and websites is useless, because that's where people are, and the industry has to adapt,” said Baksh.
With a year under their belts, the students are finding their niches and their roles, which includes maintaining their new, full-fledged website.
The staff has also recently expanded, bringing in 10 new members, including a dedicated sports reporting team and a graphic designer.
The students said that in addition to keeping their school community informed, the paper has brought them a lot of pride just because of the fact that they were able to create it.
“What I think is most fun is seeing my things I've drawn [in print],” said Ethan Liu, the paper’s illustrator who designed the new website logo. “I designed a t- shirt, and like seeing the piles of shirts that were just on the table…I smiled a lot that day.”
Growing the paper together has also brought the students closer together.
“We're all still staff members, so if someone's struggling a little bit with one thing someone else is here to help them out, we try to work as a team here,” McDermott said.
Their bond may bode well for the future. Afterall, the students are not only attempting to build a paper for the coming year, but one that continues to grow into the years to come.
“There's been so much change in the past two years, and the foundation that I think we're trying to lay is difficult,” said Baksh. “But I think it's wonderful seeing it being built up from the ground up.”
You can check out The Beacon yourself at https://thebeaconfhhs.org/.
The staff of The Beacon on a visit to the New York Times’ office in Manhattan. Photo via The Beacon
