The Future’s Bright

The future of journalism is in good hands, if the members of the Springs School Journalism Club are any indication.

The Express News Group was happy to welcome a handful of members of the club to our Southampton office on Friday to show them what we do and encourage them in their collective journey into the field.

They needed little encouragement.

The middle school kids were enthusiastic, engaged, and ready to soak up whatever bits of wisdom the Express staff shared with them.

And we put them to work — the club members came to the office with a series of articles and photographs that were edited by Express staffers before being compiled into a “mock” East Hampton Press.

The club members in attendance — Lucca Trentacoste, Gael Barrera, Siena Dion, Sophia Schuerlein, McKenzie O’Connell and Addison Cinelli, along with their advisor, Danielle Hamilton, put in a solid day’s work, learning hands-on how newspapers are put together.

And they loved it.

And so did The Express staff.

The Springs Journalism Club — not everyone could make the field trip, but are involved in the group on a weekly basis — has for the past two years written articles and taken photos that appear in The East Hampton Press and The East Hampton Star. They have learned a lot about not only how to write and report the news, and take compelling photos, but also about the greater state of the media, and how to find and recognize legitimate news sources.

The importance of teaching news literacy to our younger citizens is critical in this day and age, when so many kids get their news from social media and phone apps, which are littered with misinformation and opinion-based reports.

Through clubs like the one in Springs, news literacy programs in the schools and student publications, kids are learning to discern real news from fake news. And in the case of the kids in Springs, that education is fostering a love for news reporting that may some day lead to careers in the Fourth Estate.

Area schools should be encouraged to offer journalism and news literacy programs and clubs, and to support student newspapers, websites and broadcast initiatives to foster inquisitive young minds who want to learn and tell the truth.

Congratulations to the Springs Journalism Club, and all the other young reporters on the East End who are developing a passion for a noble profession. Keep up the good work.