What sets Indiana apart from other states? The Indy 500 or a national champion college football team may come to mind. But, there’s something else that Indiana holds above other states, at least in the eyes of the Indiana High School Press Association. They claim to sport one of the best high school press associations in the country.
“...in very simple terms, it's [my job] to make life easier for high school journalism teachers and their students. Whether it’s resources, curriculum, contests, critiques, even sometimes mediating conflicts between high school student journalists or their teachers in school administration, superintendent, school board, things like that on First Amendment issues. All of that stuff,” said Ryan Gunterman, the Executive Director of the IHSPA, a title that itself sets the organization apart from other states.
“..that's just one of the really, one of the best benefits of IHSPA, because… I know that [The Journalism Education Association] did some research and whatnot, but I'm the only full-time executive director in the country. And because all of the other executive directors, like, they'll do it as, like, a part-time gig or they'll be, like, half professor or something like that, and they give, like, 10 to 20 hours a week [to] the Scholastic Press Association, but I was hired as a full-time executive director for a state press association,” said Gunterman. “Unless there's somebody out there that we haven't found yet, I'm the only one.”
Journalism teachers all across the state feel the impact of the help from the IHSPA, including reigning IHSPA Advisor of the Year, Lauren Wagner of Zionsville Community High School.
“IHSPA provides those extra things that help me and my students grow and also helps support and celebrate our work. That primarily happens through workshops and contests. Those extras make student media a more fun environment and also one that emphasizes professional activities like development of skills outside my classroom,” said Wagner. “IHSPA is also advocating for what's best for journalism teachers and students at the state level, like at the Department of Education and statehouse.”
The aforementioned contests primarily take place at the annual state convention held at Franklin College. There, students from all across the state can attend sessions that encompass topics from all over the realm of journalism. You can of course hear about the new hot topic in the communications world – AI – or learn about more traditional things like lede writing. Plus, who doesn’t want to miss school with your friends to learn about your passion?
“It was good bonding time,” said Michaela Vest, former Editor-In-Chief of the yearbook at Floyd Central High School.
Franklin College plays a big role in the IHSPA’s workings, as the organization was actually founded there in 1922.
“They were actually editors at Franklin College, Ray Blackwell and Bill Bridges…The whole purpose behind it was to communicate opportunities, journalism opportunities to the state's high school journalism programs. Whether that be with advanced, say, convention with the critiques and all of those things, that was their goal, and it's a continued goal of Franklin College to make sure they can support us,” said Gunterman.
In fact, the college has to aid the IHSPA, thanks to a grant given to the school that stipulates as such. “...in ’71, the Pulliam family and specifically Eugene Pulliam, the owner and publisher of publications such as the Indianapolis Star; they gave an endowment to Franklin College, but part of the deal was part of that endowment had to go to the state press association. So, because of that we have a very large sum of money that allows the press association to pay for a full-time director, but also pay for a lot of the opportunities that we can present the schools. Which is why our memberships [are], like, 25 bucks. We really don't make money on anything. We truly are a nonprofit and it just allows us so much flexibility to where we don't have to really penny pinch,” said Gunterman.
In addition to Franklin College, many other post-secondary institutions are hand-in-hand with the IHSPA. For instance, Indiana University Bloomington offers a week-long journalism camp called the High School Journalism Institute, where students stay in dorms and are fully immersed in journalism.
“...we also have very close relationships with people at IU, and their journalism department, and the high school journalism institute in Ball State, their school of communications, and we really do have a nice working relationship with those two institutions specifically, because we're all benefiting the same people. And if they benefit other people, they benefit our members, then we do much better. If we benefit those same people, then you have more people going to IU and Ball State for journalism, so forth. So, it really is kind of like an all-in together. And the two people in charge of those places, Teresa White [senior lecturer and director of the High School Journalism Institute] at IU and Brian Hayes [senior lecturer] at Ball State, I consider them very close, dear friends,” said Gunterman.
The pipeline is something that the IHSPA and colleges work very hard to keep up, and there is a steady flow of high school journalists staying in the state.
“I was very involved with IU summer journalism programs, and got scholarship opportunities to join the Media School,” said current IU student Allyson Duckworth.
What does student journalism in Indiana look like in this age when information is at your fingertips at all times?
“A lot has changed, but the foundational goals and purpose of student journalism has not. I have been teaching for 20 years. Obviously, the ways in which we publish have changed a lot in that time. Print news is much rarer in high schools and it was still very much the norm when I first started teaching, with websites just starting to take off,” said Wagner. “Visual, graphic, and short-form storytelling are more important now than ever as social media is the primary way students get their news and information. My students' work has also expanded from traditional journalism to include more PR and communications work. Sports media is one of the biggest draws of my program at the moment. I never expected that, but it's so fun!”
In addition to changing the format of how news gets out, the mindset behind journalism also has to be reinforced, since today anyone can post a clip from an event on social media and make the news.
“We need ethical, trained communicators to distribute information because everybody thinks, since they can communicate at any time that they want, that they're journalists; but that's not even close to being true. You need trained individuals. So we've done a lot on that type of training, on responsible storytelling, fact checking, really stressing the importance of being accurate and the importance of distributing useful information to a wide audience. And so, we've kind of moved away from, ‘we need to keep more traditional media alive’ to, ‘we need to make sure that the people who are going to do the communicating, because we're communicating more now than we ever had as a species,’” said Gunterman.
Of course in Indiana you have the IndyStar, The Herald-Times, and local stations and papers all across the state, but the state itself isn’t known for journalistic pillars such as the New York Times. So then, why did these educators decide to devote their effort to building up the IHSPA and helping the next generation of journalists here?
“...there's not a lot of classes in high school like journalism, like you don't care about what your classmates are doing in math class or what grade somebody got in English class, but in student journalism, everybody depends on everybody else's success, and you have to work together. You have to figure things out together. You have to solve problems together. You have to work with people you don't like and still do the job. Just seeing people grow so much and do so well with it that it's something that we have to keep in our schools because we'd have so many lost people without it,” said Gunterman. “Not to mention the whole First Amendment and active citizenry thing, and, you know, a democracy. But it's such a good tool for students during a time where they need that tool, because it helps them figure out things at a very formative time of their life. And, it's just something that I really, really enjoy.”