I grew up walking through the newsrooms and presses of the San Francisco Chronicle. Back in the 1980s and 1990s the world of news reporting was quickly changing. Every time I told my father I aspired to work at “the Chron” he told me to stay far away from the newspaper business. He saw that not only was the 24 hour news cycle of broadcast media a major obstacle to the success of print newspapers, the advent of something called the World Wide Web threatened the very existence of traditional journalism.
Fast-forward a few decades and my father was both right and wrong. Print media is to some degree dead and how news is reported and consumed has greatly changed. However, the journalist, the reporter, the editor, the photographer, and the whole notion of a news media is still a major force in the world today. There is still an insatiable hunger in the world for accurate, fair and balanced news reporting. There are also fresh ways news comes from journalist to consumer: reels, short news segments, flashy infographics, etc.
That’s where the Stallion Chronicle arrives today; in a world with more mass communication options than ever before and more problems than ever before. We’re navigating a world drowning in misinformation, AI-generated content, and algorithms designed to divide us. This threatens the notion of a student voice, both at the secondary level and tertiary level (university). In the United States, where NIS’ curriculum and school culture derives from, President Donald Trump and his MAGA administration has drastically cut funding from everything from the National Endowment for the Humanities to National Public Radio to the National Science Foundation. In short, the teenager’s ability to become an informed, active and dutiful citizen is under attack.
Thus, it is more important than ever to promote student voice; to encourage young stallions to report on their community, challenge their leaders assumptions and advocate on their own behalf while also promoting and highlighting the successes, failures, trials, tribulations, and joys of teenage life. Teenagers must have space to publicly tell their stories, to experience varying perspectives and have their own points of views challenged. When students are not able to tell their own stories, they cannot build community and if students cannot do as much then NIS as an institution will not be able to truly build a school culture. School culture must emanate from the student body itself. Teenagers do not buy into the norms and mores and values of a school culture simply because they exist or it is willed to be so, they buy into them because they see how the power of their voice affects change and they see the power that is inherent in being able to shape their communities.
High school journalism offers a distinct skills-based approach to community building by harnessing the power of student voice. By encouraging students to be journalists or seek to be published in the Stallion Chronicle we are allowing them to explore their world, analyze the choices being made by and for them and within a safe and supportive environment learn to advocate for themselves and each other. That is the unique power of student journalism; it creates dialogue and it helps students, teacher, administrators and parents communicate.
It is with great pleasure, a fair share of trepidation and great honor to introduce the Stallion Chronicle and the 37 students who are learning and creating, not just for a grade but to create a legacy of student journalism at Nakornpayap International School. As the Editor-in-Chief of the Stallion Chronicle, its biggest advocate and the teacher assessing these young Journalism students I promise to strive to teach impartiality of reporters of school events, fair and balanced opinion writers, and journalists who follow strict ethical codes based on globally recognized precedents.
