Who Cares?

Who Cares?

Mareesa Buskirk, Staff Writer

The common question in the journalism classroom is “who cares?” What do students at Alliance High School care about? Is it sports, choir, current events? That is a large thought that crosses our mind as a writer, and it’s a concern as to what students want to read about.

Many stories aren’t written about major events, and it’s not because they aren’t important, they just aren’t what students relate to. Major events have been occurring everywhere, but it isn’t what we write about because a lot of students would much rather hear about a sports event.

Many students go to sporting events, so writing a sports story is difficult. It can’t be something simple, with just the score. Within a sports story, it needs to be in depth into a real storyline. We don’t want a story about just the score of a game, students want something real, something that sparks emotion.

Our school has a tendency of leaning towards sports because that is what we are known for. There are many extracurriculars that go unrecognised. Band, choir, golf, tennis and many other activities aren’t as appreciated. These activities aren’t what strike students’ attention, which is completely okay, but it’s hard to write about them when they aren’t what students are interested in.

Major news events are also something that many students don’t catch interest in. There have been many shootings in various places. For some students, these kinds of things hit home. For others, they just don’t relate to it, and that’s why stories aren’t written, because there isn’t any information that isn’t already published somewhere else.

There are many clubs that go unrecognized as well, and we try our best to give them recognition for what they do. The big question through this whole story is really just “who cares?” because we want to write about what interests our students, but we also need to recognize the little things.

Writing stories is a process, and our biggest question is always “who cares?” It’s difficult to write stories when the audience only care about stories that pertain to themselves.  With all of this being said, what do student journalists write about, and what do students want to hear?