Studies show that young people believe that following news helps make them more knowledgeable and better equipped to take action in their communities. However, they report that the news they generally encounter makes them feel sad, angry, and/or fearful, is complicated and hard to follow, and poorly represents youth and their communities.
This workshop, scheduled for November 19, 2024, 10:45am-12:00pm MST, will enable youth-supporting professionals to bridge the gap between the journalism as an empowering force in young people's lives and the disempowering news they often encounter. Participants will explore the Pulitzer Center reporting project The Talk and hear from filmmaker Jesse Ryan about how she approached making an empowering documentary centering young people's voices in a story about their own access to health information. Pulitzer Center Education team staff will facilitate a guided reflection on the role of news in participants' lives and the lives of the youth they support, share practices for effective, positive health-justice journalism, and emphasize media literacy skills that can help empower people of all ages to find the stories that matter to them and use them as a starting point for informed action.
This workshop will take place as part of the 2025 Healthy Teen Network conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more about the conference and registration fees here.
If you are attending the conference, please also visit the Pulitzer Center team at our exhibit booth! We'll be sharing education resources on health justice journalism, and inviting you to contribute to a community poem envisioning a healthy future.