LANTANA, Fla. — It’s Scripps National News Literacy Week and WPTV is committed to show the importance of the role of media and a free press in our communities.
WPTV anchor Mike Trim shadowed two Lantana students working on an important project for their school newspaper.
Trinity Macaluso and Azwad Ahmed are staff members of Santaluces High School's online newspaper SHS The Tribe. They wrote about a topic close to the hearts and lives of their classmates, in-person learning compared to distance learning.
“Journalism plays an important part throughout all of this as a mode of just like, presenting different perspectives," said Macaluso.
“It’s really important to us, a newspaper that uses our reputable sources,” Azwad Ahmed, editor of SHS The Tribe said. “Our advisor always taught us to give both perspectives of a story.”
The students are learning that there are challenges, but journalism and freedom of the press provide a backdrop for expression.
"When you’re looking up numbers and you’re finding different amounts from different sites on the same thing and you’re feeling like this should be a cold-hard fact or something like that and it’s not,” said Macaluso.
“Rehash every single fact that we can and let kids know that this is real,” said Ahmed.
The opinions fall along so many backgrounds, and they want they're fellow students to know that they're represented in their school publication, shsthetribe.com.
“I feel that this is a highly debated topic right now especially with the current political climate and I feel like this story is relevant to our school,” Macaluso said.
“Going back versus staying home and just the reality of both and the benefits and the negative impacts and just to able to make a serious education of what they feel is the best,” said Ahmed. “Going back you risk contracting the virus, but staying online you might affect your mental health. There’s many different reasons you should stay online, like the COVID cases are soaring right now. The record level of students failing classes and getting behind and just the quality of education received online is arguably not as good as it would be in person.”
They wrote an important article that their fellow students will be able to read and gain better understanding of the issue.