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by Etele Solomontchik
Back in Spring 2017, I had a chance to visit a lecture at the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University together with two other students of our school: Dominic Mara and Michael Stafeev. The lecture was about longreads, a form of online journalism in which longer articles are written. It was very interesting, and made me realize how diverse journalism really is. The Festival of School Mass Media was also hosted at the Faculty while we were attending our workshop. After our lecture finished, we had some time to walk around and see the newspapers of various Russian schools that were submitted for the contest. It was at that moment that I realized that our school doesn't have a newspaper. I immediately asked Mrs Anna if it is possible to start our own one. Mrs Anna promised that she will look into it and let me know about the decision.
While I was waiting for an answer, a new project idea was introduced. Our task was to apply the knowledge we’ve learned at the workshop and make a longread. The topic that interested everyone was quickly chosen - Regional Student Convention. After a month of hard work our team had successfully finished. In the longread named “Unconventional Convention” we talked about the preparation, history, rules, and many other interesting aspects of Convention. During the Award Ceremony at the end of the year, I was able to share the amazing work we have done as a team in a speech presented to our fellow students, parents, and teachers. Now looking back on that experience I can say that it was one of our first steps towards the newspaper.
After bugging Mrs Anna with the question “Will we have a school newspaper?” for several weeks, I received my long-awaited answer. YES! We will have our own newspaper. After a lot of brainstorming, a name for the newspaper was discovered. It was R.O.O.T.S.
R - Realistic. O - Optimistic. O - Objective. T - Trustworthy. S - Source.
Since September 2017 R.O.O.T.S. has published 12 Issues. We have also developed our website where all issues can be found and even printed! A lot of work was put into every single issue. Many meetings, a lot of brainstorming, and even more deadlines. As the Executive Editor I may now say that this has been a great journey. The newspaper “grew” together with us and it taught us many things. I would like to thank every single person who has contributed their time. Working for the newspaper has truly been a highlight of my high school experience. I am proud of how far we were able to come.
Unconventional Convention Longread (https://aztunca.wixsite.com/regionalconvention )
R.O.O.T.S. Newspaper Website
