The Next Generation

This week, the student newspaper staff of Harlem school PS 123 visited our offices. I spent three hours with the students, gave them a tour of our offices, introduced them to some of my amazing co-workers, discussed how the web is changing newspapers, and we even created a blog, uploaded images and took videos to give them a sense of what online multimedia reporting is like.

The kids asked really good questions, and I was constantly amazed at how intelligent they are. No matter what question you ask, you get a totally unexpected answer. Though, my favorite was the girl who answered my question “what is your favorite movie,” with this answer: “Juno!”

These students are growing up in a world unlike the one I did. They will be communicating more often, with more people, in more ways than I ever could have imagined at their age.

Their expectations of media and journalism will be different. Their habits will be based more on the influence of real-time data and web-based technologies, than on media that is created once and doesn’t change.

But for all this change, some things stay the same. When asked if they thought the Harry Potter movies were better than the books, every single one of them was vehement in their belief that the books were vastly superior to the movies.

Here are a few more photos:


Library Journal Editor-in-Chief Francine Fialkoff takes a moment to discuss books with the students.


Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid is their new hero: he gets to read and review comic books for a living! Luckiest guy in the world.


They are still at an age where rows and rows of gray cubes seems exciting…

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