I own three blue RayGun t-shirts with the ‘Support New Voices’ tag on the back of each shirt. 

One reads, on the front, ‘America Needs Student Journalists.’ I bought this one for myself. 

The graphic on the front of both of the others says, ‘America Needs Journalism Teachers.’ These were gifts from friends who thought I deserved the title, even though I haven’t formally been a journalism teacher since fall 2017. 

I’ve been advising the extracurricular yearbook at my current school since the first frosts of 2020. But—tellingly—I didn’t feel like I could wear any of these blue shirts on dress-down days until the first frosts of 2022, after I’d advised an issue of the school newspaper this year.

There was no journalism class on my roster, but I tried to cram as much club-based coaching as I could into August, September, and October. Brandishing their new reporters’ notebooks, students started to use terms like lede, nutgraf, ‘on the record,’ and LQTQ in conversation. They launched brand-new social media channels and re-launched a dormant website. They started calling themselves and each other journalists, and they started to feel like a team. 

The first issue was ready in November and—I guess—it was a doozy.

The school’s administration removed that first issue from our makeshift distribution desk one day after editors placed it there. The student journalists and I didn’t see it happen. We heard about it while we were attending the National High School Journalism Convention in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Without getting too far into the weeds, there was disagreement around a photo that students chose to publish alongside an article. Late-night phone calls with school administrators and in-person conversations with the Student Press Law Center—after all, we were at a student journalism convention—left student editors feeling like the best move was pushing forward rather than pushing back. The school administration eventually allowed students to publish the article online with a photo of empty bleachers replacing the original shot. 

They also instituted prior review.

When we got back from St. Louis, wearing my blue t-shirts felt like an uncertain statement. Students and colleagues who had learned bits of the issue via chatter or social media realized that I was the newspaper adviser this year. They either wanted to talk about it—uncomfortable, without the space to educate about student journalism—or they conspicuously avoided the topic. 

It took a few weeks to move on to the next problems at school, and a few more weeks to boost confidence towards producing the next issue, and a few months to settle into a routine of meetings with the school administration before and after the publication of each print edition. 

The meetings started with just our principal, but by the end of this school year, we were seated around a formal conference table with higher-level administrators. Student editors did the talking, and any teacher would be proud of how well they handled criticism and directives. Many adults would not be so graceful. Yet during each meeting, my watch registered a concerning spike in my heart rate. And after each meeting, it took a lot of listening, reassuring, hugs, and motivational stickers to jump-start students into wanting to do journalism again.

Like all RayGun shirts, my blue shirts are incredibly soft. But my experiences with student journalism have sometimes been hard. If you’re reading this story, you might know some of the chapters that I haven’t published. Before the sun came up in St. Louis one morning, I sat at a hidden table in the lobby of our hotel, crying softly on the phone. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t,” I said to a trusted ear, after relaying the students’ disappointment and stress about what was going on back at school. “Hold me accountable,” I said. “If I’m still doing this in a year…” 

My voice trailed off. Students were entering the lobby for breakfast. Time to end the call, take morning roll, and start another round at the convention. 

By the end of the day, I was re-energized—spending hours in a convention center full of idealists will do that trick. By the end of our stay in St. Louis, my students no longer just felt like a team—they were a team. By the end of this school year, I was exhausted (and taking preventative measures for high blood pressure), but still stubbornly passionate about student journalism, and choosing to focus on the wins. 

This year, those wins include but are not limited to the time our editor-in-chief locked down an interview with a director at the CDC. 

And the feature that a sophomore launched to interview a successful alumnus each month. 

And the day our social media editor cut a cake to celebrate 600 followers. 

And our visit from the dean of a nationally-renowned journalism school. 

And the editorial board meetings that ended with laughter and consensus.

And the unprompted teacher appreciation reel, and the senior who taught himself to create video packages, and the mentorship meeting with elementary school journalists, and the first-ever index in our yearbook because students were proud of their coverage.

And just the fact that there were still students showing up to write and design and post at the end of the school year.*

And the awards. Without asking permission, I filled up an empty display case in the school lobby with our students’ award certificates from this year’s journalism contests. Maybe I was just dusting a chip off my shoulder. Maybe no one really paused to look. Or maybe, someone did.

As yearbook editors and I cranked out the remaining pages after the school year ended, I alternated wearing my soft blue t-shirts with a cheap, stiffer one that read “I’m sorry for what I said when I was on deadline.” It got a few chuckles. If you’re an adviser or if you’ve been a student journalist, you know what I mean.

America needs student journalists. We all do, in every school, in every situation. And my students definitely represented new voices—lower case—this year as they tested the waters, made mistakes, experienced wins and losses, and learned from the process. 

The question I’ve been trying to settle for awhile now: Does the capitalized version of New Voices truly boost and protect student journalism in schools without established or award-winning programs? Will it actually build new students’ voices through confidence in journalism?

Do the fronts and the backs of my soft blue t-shirts truly match?

*And the dirt room. If you know, you know.