NY TIMES TO HELP HIGH SCHOOL NEWSPAPERS GET ONLINE

By: Staff Reports Campus Weblines Project Offers Free Software, Templates


The New York Times Co. Foundation and New York Times Digital have launched a
national initiative to give high school students and teachers the information
and tools they need to publish online newspapers at schools.

Campus Weblines, a free
manual available online at The New York Times Learning Network, covers the
basics of online writing and editing, practical information on layout online,
and instruction in the professional and ethical issues raised by instant-access
news.

Since last April, the co-authors, Karen Freeman and Steven Knowlton, have been
working with eight students from Stuyvestant High School in lower Manhattan to
develop a publishing system for high school newspapers. Freeman, a staff editor
for "Circuits," a New York Times section on technology, and Knowlton, a
journalism professor, advised the students on how to produce The Spectator Online,
which went live in October.

Campus Weblines, which has been announced to 29,800 high schools, documents the
experience and lessons learned in the process of launching the Stuyvestant Web
site.

Jack Rosenthal, president of The New York Times Co. Foundation and a major force
behind the project, said, "It occurred to me that today most high school
students don't get the experience of working on a print paper anymore." So he
thought that publishing online might be easier, considering how Web-savvy high
school students are today.

But it took a $5,500 check to fund an online journalism teacher at Stuyvestant
High School before the principal would agree to the project. And the "formerly
reticent and chilly faculty became more enthusiastic," as the idea was presented
to them, Rosenthal said.

The eight students ultimately produced eight versions of software at varying
levels of complexity to publish online, all available for free download at The
New York Times Learning site. Rosenthal said the different versions can create
sites with "all the bells and whistles" or remain extremely simple for schools
with less resources, such as fewer computers and less server capacity.

"The students have learned how damnably important it is to be accurate and
fast," said Rosenthal of their experience in online newspapering.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.