Grytte Newspaper Staff Meets with Alumni and Peer School Journalists

Browning’s student newspaper staff members enjoyed information sessions with both alumni journalists and student journalists in early May, as Grytte advisor Jeremy Katz ’04 reports:

The staff released their third issue of the school year on May 2, Alumni Reunion, allowing for the 150-plus alumni and guests who returned to the School that day to leave with a copy of the paper. The issue featured a cover story focused on Alex Vadukul ’07, Wes Vernon ’49 and David Kimball-Stanley ’05, three alumni who spoke to the Upper School students that morning about their careers in journalism and communications. Following the panel, the editors of the Grytte sat down with these alums in the Cook Room for a more in-depth discussion. They received writing advice and information on the types of careers they might wish to consider, including public relations.

On the evening of May 9, the co-editors-in-chief of The Hewitt Times from The Hewitt School gathered student newspaper staffs from various New York City schools including Browning, Dalton, Collegiate, Fieldston, Riverdale, Horace Mann and Trevor Day to discuss their publications and hear from two distinguished speakers, Taylor Trudon, deputy editor at Huffington Post Teen, and Erica Futterman, managing editor of Buzzfeed.

According to the Hewitt Times’ press release, “The Journalism Summit seeks to facilitate collaboration among New York City peer-school newspapers in order to create a network of shared resources and commitment to the field of journalism at the high school level.” Each newspaper group presented a five-minute presentation of its publication, including information on the publication platform, frequency of publication, editorial team and staff structure, staff/editorial meeting frequency and format, division of content into sections, and typical articles.

The meeting proved very productive, as the editors from Browning, Hewitt and Riverdale took inspiration from Headmaster Clement’s recent letter to the editor of The New York Times regarding the ways that boys learn; they plan to write a collaborative article on the topic of single-sex as compared to co-ed education. Another exciting development as a result of the evening program is that one of the Grytte’s deputy editors was invited by Taylor Trudon to be a blogger for The Huffington Post Teen! The fourth issue of the Grytte, planned for release at Lower School Closing/Prize Day, will provide further information on these exciting fronts. (Alumni Reunion photos by Rossa Cole, Hewitt Journalism Summit by Jeremy Katz '04).