Fredlove Deshommes, a student at Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice in New York City, decided to tell a better story about her school than the story The New York Post ran under the headline, “School of Glock,” reporting on a student bringing a gun to school.
“I was participating in The Bell’s Summer Youth Podcast Academy, writing a narrative story about a neighborhood. I chose my school and shared that experience and how it paints Black and brown schools that are usually impoverished and from a certain background,” Deshommes said.
Deshommes, a 2025 graduate of the School for Law and Justice, is one of many New York City (NYC) high school students learning the journalistic skills to tell their stories through The Bell and NYC Youth Journalism Coalition programs.
The Bell was founded in 2017 by former teachers and journalists, Taylor McGraw and Adrian Uribarri. The first students to intern reported on the issue of school segregation for The Bell’s flagship Miseducation podcast. That interest in podcasting led to the Summer Youth Podcast Academy launch in partnership with Gimlet Media, now Spotify, in Summer 2020.
“Even before I became formally involved in the youth journalism world, I was thinking about the importance of having students tell stories from their perspectives. The driving force for The Bell in the early days was a lack of youth voices, even as sources, in coverage of educational issues,” McGraw said.
As the demand from students to participate in The Bell’s program increased quickly, McGraw recognized a supply gap — 90% of the students were being turned away due to limited capacity. Most did not have a school journalism program as an alternative. A 2021–2022 Baruch College study revealed approximately 75% of the public high schools had no student newspaper or news site. The Bell acted to close the gap by launching the Coalition in Fall 2022.
CJ Sánchez, a highly regarded educator, was named director of the Coalition in October 2024.
“The reason I entered education and became a teacher strongly aligns with the importance of journalism. I believe education is a tool for student agency and empowers young people to have agency over their future. The activities and mission of the Coalition equip students with the skills to navigate and engage with the world around them,” Sánchez said.
The Coalition is an opportunity for schools, universities, nonprofits, technology companies and media outlets in NYC to coordinate their existing programs and reach more students. They include The Paley Center for Media, The Nation Fund, Baruch College at CUNY and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, among others.
Journalism for All is a three-year initiative of the Coalition and its partners. Thirty schools have been selected to participate in the project and will receive the resources to launch and sustain new journalism courses.
“Starting this fall, those 30 schools will offer a new journalism course and receive a complete, comprehensive and adaptable education framework that includes the curriculum and instructional materials developed by CUNY Newmark and professional development for the journalism instructors. They will also receive start-up funding to launch their student publications and in-kind services, such as access to professional journalists, media training and other support,” said Sánchez.
Both McGraw and Sánchez encourage other school systems to contact them to learn how to create similar programs. Local publishers can also become involved by sharing this article with the local educators they know. McGraw can be contacted at taylor@bellvoices.org and Sánchez at info@youthjournalismnyc.org.
Bob Sillick has held many senior positions and served a myriad of clients during his 47 years in marketing and advertising. He has been a freelance/contract content researcher, writer, editor and manager since 2010. He can be reached at bobsillick@gmail.com.
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