LA Youth was a

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

by and about

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

teens, published monthly from January 1988 to January 2013, and was distributed to more than 1,400 Los Angeles county public/private schools, libraries, and youth organizations.L.A. Youth newspapers and records, 1989-2013 at UCLA Library Special Collections
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High school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

teenagers (grades 9–12) were the group of

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, known as staff writers, who work on each monthly publication. Even eighth grade (

8th grade Eighth grade (or grade eight in some regions) is the eighth post-kindergarten year of formal education in the US. The eighth grade is the ninth school year, the second, third, fourth, or final year of middle school, or the second and/or final ye ...

) students who want to become involved, could attend staff meetings,

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

with others, and contribute to the paper. The staff writers prepared each issue by attending Saturday staff meetings, held at the LA Youth office in the Fairfax District. At the meetings, staff writers met with the adult staff and newcomer students. Students and staff writers were always encouraged to bring in friends and siblings, to broaden the number of students involved on the paper, and have 'L.A. youth' voices heard. The meeting consisted of each writer/student presenting himself/herself to the rest of the students, such as what school he/she went to, what he liked to do for fun, and where he was planning to attend college. Students at the meetings came from different schools and cities, such as the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

West Los Angeles West Los Angeles is an area within the city of Los Angeles, California. The residential and commercial neighborhood is divided by the Interstate 405 freeway, and each side is sometimes treated as a distinct neighborhood, mapped differently by di ...

, inner

, and

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles ( es, Este de Los Ángeles), or East L.A., is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 118,786, a drop of 6.1% from 2010, when it was 126,496. For statistical purpo ...

. With the diversity of students, each student was able to share their different opinions about school graduation requirements, recent police enforcement misconduct, crime and violence, and other controversial news. Every topic discussed at the staff meetings acted as an informative/planning/thinking-ahead/ready to succeed, factor. The adult staff always motivated its youth, being sure that students whom represent the paper were hard-workers and motivated learners. After student presentations at the meeting, the adult staff took over by asking if current

articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...

have been revised or finished. If any staff member was having an issue, he/she could share it with the group and receive support. Even sharing an issue could give another staff writer an idea to write an article. If the adult staff agreed it's an important issue to discuss, then the writer could begin

brainstorming Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. In other words, brainstorming is a situation where a grou ...

, find other interested writers, and write the article. Writers had a variety of methods in writing for the paper. They could write articles in personal tone, reporter tone, and even add polls and

quotation A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by ...

s from people. Students with photography and art talent could contribute to an article by doing photography or drawings that pertain to a specific topic. The most written about articles on LA Youth were personal experiences, which taught the reader how to handle certain life situations; or articles on doing what's best for one's own personal record.

References

External links

LA Youth official site
{{California-newspaper-stub Newspapers published in Greater Los Angeles