National News Engagement Day is Tuesday, Oct. 7

Early last week JEA announced its support of National News Engagement Day, and because it’s just around the corner –Tuesday, Oct. 7 – we want to share ideas for how your students might choose to participate.

1. Consider signing the pledge here.

2. Check out the ideas posted from AEJMC on a Pinterest board dedicated to this event. The board has contributions from all across the country, and many of these activities could work for your students or spark an idea.

3. Be social. Please tag anything you’re doing with both the #newsengagementday hashtag and #JEA so we can have a strong presence for this inaugural event.

4. Encourage your EICs to promote via student media, such as on their news websites. Once they start brainstorming, their ideas will be way better than ours (always!), but to get things started, consider inviting students to do a “why news matters” editorial to run Tuesday.

5. Wear staff T-shirts for any on-campus or community activities that day. Capture photos and share! (Again, post and tag as #newsengagementday AND #JEA.)

6. Host an event at lunch or before/after school. Invite students to read, discuss, view news together as student journalists lead the way.

7. Conduct an open brainstorming session or story budget meeting (or similar) so students at your school can see how your students determine what’s news and why as well as how to localize it, how to find sources, how to determine the best way to tell the story. Does your school audience know what that process looks like? Wouldn’t it be cool to host an open session?

8. Use materials from the JEA Curriculum Initiative. Here are four lessons with natural connections:

Those are just a few ideas to get the ball rolling. We’re excited to be part of NNED, and we hope you are, too.