‘Be curious about the world,’ journalists tell students

We’ve never Zoomed with 12 teenagers before. Pretty soon they start asking questions, just like reporters do.

Usually, it’s the other way around. We ask the questions. That’s Jacqueline R. Smith, the editorial page editor of this newspaper; and me, a former managing editor of The News-Times. But this day we were answering questions from an alert group of students in Kristin Ricciardone’s Bethel High School journalism class.

It turns out we were cool. In fact student Jessica Astrologo thought it was “beyond cool that they have such a passion and strong knowledge on history . . .”

In her after-class assignment, Jessica wrote how I mentioned, “‘If you want to worship the blue moon-god you can.’ This quote interested me to realize that there are still older school civilians that strongly believe in freedom.”

Well amen to that! We reminded these teenagers of the five freedoms in the First Amendment: freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

But it was Jacqueline’s true tale of how she rode on the deck of a submarine being launched into the Thames River in Groton that caught Scott Davis’ attention. The water came up over her boots and she got soaked as she hung onto a flag pole and the ship splashed into the river for the first time.

Jacqueline got a front-page story and, “I gained a new appreciation for journalism,” wrote Davis.

Christina Sangermano put the launch story this way: “She went through an interesting way to get a new point of view (for) her readers.”

Their classmate Zander Lopez, “found it interesting about the murder case in Greenwich” when I had to climb over a fence around a gated community to reach the crime scene.

Erin Lowenadler caught the essence of our lecture, or rather our Q and A: “The best tool to have is to ‘be curious about the world.’ I think this is especially inspiring because the best stories come from a question you may have about something, that you have to seek out and find the answers to.” Bravo Erin!

She went on: “I learned a lot today ... about being open-minded and understanding other viewpoints from your own. Mr. Smith was saying that if you are a conservative, listen to some liberal ideas and understand where they are coming from, and vice versa. I think this comes with a lot of maturity and is definitely important so that your articles are not biased.”

Ella Burns-Demelo focused on journalism’s ethics code. “For example, the freedom of the press belongs to the people and the public’s business is conducted in the public. Their job is to show the people what is going on in the government and in society... A lot of what they talked about is overall honesty and revealing the truth.”

She captured an important point. A basic job of journalism is to keep local, state and federal officials honest.

Nicholas Salvino built on her observation: “The government can’t stop you from saying things, aka freedom of the press, no matter what you publish the government can’t take it down or remove your work, as long as it’s true. The government can also not stop you from protesting. The press shows people how people agree/disagree. The press can show the good and the bad.”

“I learned that sometimes journalists have to write about things they may not agree on. The most important thing I took away from this is that when writing on world problems, nationwide views, you have to keep in mind FACT OVER FEELING,” was Tessa Barrows assessment.

Destiny Beato put it succinctly: “They believe truth is the basis of our government.”

“What I learned from our guest speakers is that we always have to get good information and the right information. To write a good article we need to get enough information to ... catch the readers’ attention. They gave good examples on how to become a good writer (and) how we got freedom of speech and press,” wrote Camily Vega Aveiga.

To Lucas Wells, “Each politician of the American system thinks differently. The point of the press is to show what the politicians believe. ... Read both sides to better understand, or to formulate an opinion. A painter uses brush strokes, a writer uses words to paint a picture.”

Alejandro Chimbo came away learning that “journalism is all about giving people information about the government and all other things going on in the world ... and when people read both sides, they understand the situation much better. News is something many people take for granted since it’s always there, but free speech is something some countries don’t have.”

She found our time together “interesting and fun.”

So did we.