Reviving school newspapers could strengthen Minnesota’s journalism ecosystem

This story was produced as part of ThreeSixty Journalism’s 2025 Opinion and Commentary Workshop for youth, in partnership with Sahan Journal and MinnPost. ThreeSixty is a multimedia storytelling program for Minnesota youth, focused on contributing to more accurate narratives and representative newsrooms. 

My former school, Minnetonka High School, is one of the largest public schools in Minnesota. Once a month, I would walk the halls with my co-editors to hand out newspapers, brushing past nearly 3,500 students as a stream of apologies trailed behind us. I dreaded the chaos of those early mornings, but nothing beat the satisfaction of finally seeing our articles in print. This was a newspaper with local stories, produced by students like me.

I joined the newspaper as an editor in my sophomore year, with no prior experience. Journalism drew me in because it connects people to history in ways that serve the community. Unsure of my skills, I searched for a summer program that could give me a start and eventually ground me in journalism. 

At the time, I thought journalism lived in national headlines and not local stories. I believed I had to go out of Minnesota to learn. Instead, with some convincing, my parents drove me to ThreeSixty Journalism, a youth journalism program at the University of St. Thomas. After three weeks with them, my doubts turned into excitement.

After my sophomore year, I transferred schools. At Minnetonka, I spent mornings on less busy staircases to avoid the crowds. My few friends were not in my classes. In the afternoons, I would stay for the newspaper meetings but felt detached. So, I applied to the Perpich Center for Arts Education, a small arts high school with about 145 students. Perpich once had something that resembled a bi-weekly student newspaper; more like a pamphlet. But all its staff had graduated.

I missed those days of crowding around a computer with my co-editors, so I decided to revive Perpich’s newspaper. It was no easy task. To my surprise, many students had never seen a school newspaper. One student joked that she only saw newspapers in TV shows. I laughed, but it made me realize how far-removed teenagers are from journalism. Like me before, they viewed news through national outlets like The New York Times or foreign conflict coverage. To them, joining the paper suddenly made journalism real, and closer.

That realization was the same spark that ThreeSixty Journalism gave me. By the time I started at Perpich, I had served a year on ThreeSixty’s Youth Leadership Board. That year, we visited New York City. I still remember staring up at the giant New York Times building, but what stuck with me most was our meeting with the New York City Youth Journalism Coalition.

They advocate for journalism access for all NYC high schoolers. At the time, I never connected their efforts to my own state. I learned about a study by Professor Jeanne Belton at Baruch College that showed how few NYC high school students had access to a newspaper. I began to wonder about Minnesota.

An internet search for the number of high school newspapers in Minnesota yielded no clear data. Larger student journalism programs in Minnesota are getting pushed out to parents, who either move to offer their children better opportunities or neglect to take action in their small town. It’s not hard to see how this crucial gap extends to a consolidation of community journalism in Minnesota: high school journalism concentrates into the metro area alongside community newspapers, which accelerates a cyclical pattern at the national level. The NYC Youth Journalism Coalition has already caught up to this pattern, and they are making significant progress. But in Minnesota, there is no such solution.

Following their example, I thought gathering statistics was the first step. I reached out to State Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins, co-chair of the education finance committee, to ask about data collection on students’ access to journalism education. She questioned the funding needed to gather statewide information. “What matters is what we do with those statistics,” she said. Youakim has supported student press freedom since 2005 and championed the Minnesota New Voices law before it passed in 2024. Her point was clear: the real gap isn’t just data. It’s enthusiasm, resources and local commitment.

Rep. Youakim’s words convinced me that to promote local journalism in Minnesota schools, we need local solutions. Minnesota’s existing community journalism organizations, already familiar with the media climate, can guide efforts inspired by the coalition. 

Outlets like North News, in North Minneapolis immerse high school interns in reporting with a hyperlocal lens. MinnPost is another news outlet that works closely with ThreeSixty. So does Sahan Journal, which covers immigrant and communities of color and plays a key role in telling nuanced stories, especially as immigrants become political talking points.

Hyperlocal news builds a more humane community. It reaches places government reports can’t. It shows students that journalism isn’t a distant, elite profession but a tool for civic life. We may not yet have the resources for a statewide Journalism For All, but we can support programs already doing the work. Parents can advocate for their schools to have newspapers. Programs like North News and ThreeSixty need sustained funding to prepare the next generation of journalists.

A healthy journalism ecosystem is built on the foundation of community, and that starts in educational settings. Local change has more bumps and roadblocks than a legal initiative carried out in one smooth omnibus bill, but with that journey comes strength. That strength gathers in Minnesota schools, and through every newspaper, rekindles a fire that softens the cold world of news.

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