Paper writes new chapter in student journalism

SANDPOINT - There are two distinct groups of people behind every issue of Sandpoint High School's student newspaper, the Cedar Post. One is made up of current student journalists who report, write and lay out the news. The other is comprised of former staffers and advisors who are rooting from the sidelines.

The Cedar Post, according to the paper's own reporting, has been around for the past 88 years. In that time it has turned out several professional writers and pulled in no small number of national awards.

The program's success has largely been based on stability at the top - Cedar Post advisors usually were in place to watch several classes of high school students traverse the academic experience. The most recognized advisor of them all, Bob Hamilton, spent 28 years grooming young journalists at SHS.

Like a winning sports team that stumbles due to coaches that come and go, the Cedar Post has struggled because of advisor turnover in recent years. Accordingly, student interest in joining the staff waned more than 35 percent this school year compared with a year ago. 

"We've had a different instructor for each of the four years we've been here," said staff writer Casey Dunn.

"It's been pretty crazy," added Chelsea Kardokus, the Cedar Post's editor-in-chief.

Becky Kiebert has presided over the revolving door of advisory staff during her time as principal of SHS. She feels that a higher degree of consistency could be in the paper's future with this year's addition of Mike Gearlds as Cedar Post advisor. According to the principal, Gearlds - an experienced freelance writer who has teaching experience and spent time in the trenches of daily journalism - understands the delicate balancing act that might have tipped recent predecessors out of the job.

"It's a very different situation, because you're pulled at one end to be a journalist and defend the First Amendment rights, but you also have to be able to work with the administration and get along with the students," the principal said. "It's harder than most people imagine."

Following a nondescript beginning to the first semester, where Page 1 was locked into a template that included uniform sizing for lead photos and a regimented approach to story placement, the Cedar Post broke loose with more innovative design and larger photos that resembled some of the award-winning past publications of the school newspaper.

The paper got its groove back with an October presidential election issue that polled the high school's classrooms as if they were states with electoral votes, resulting in an issue crammed full of election season graphics and outcome predictions.

"All the art, music and drama classes went blue," said Jesse Cobb, graphics editor for the paper.

"The shop and professional technical education classes were both red," said Carly Rickard, photo editor.

"Obama ended up winning," Kardokus said.

The student journalists rated the issue as the most difficult one so far this year, mostly due to the amount of reporting involved and the graphics-intensive nature of the layout. The hard work was rewarded when more classmates picked up copies of the Cedar Post to see whether their respective hallways went to Obama or McCain.

October's issue was also notable for its lean toward provocative humor in a back page sidebar listing write-in candidates selected by the student body. The names included apocryphal news anchor and presidential candidate Stephen Colbert; self-anointed King of Funk, Rick James; and write-in prospects Oprah Winfrey, Chuck Norris and SHS shop teacher Yogi Vasquez.

The list was accompanied by photos of the proposed candidates and bullet points outlining their qualifications and potential running mates. Rounding out that list - in a gesture almost assured to spark controversy - was the classic, votive candle illustration of Jesus Christ. Under the heading "Why you know him," the copy read: "Founded a little known religion called Christianity."  The likely running mate?  "His dad, the big guy upstairs."

The front page of the same issue contained another potentially controversial element - a photo illustration of a hooded gunman silhouetted in an SHS hallway to accompany a story headlined: "School security measures tighten." 

Since firearms are forbidden in schools, a handgun was "Photoshopped" into the image after the photo was taken.

Big-issue stories, bold design and eye-catching photography are bearing fruit as more students thumb through the Cedar Post for news. If the trend toward higher readership continues, the publication could turn out to be the journalism program's most effective recruiting tool. Given the drop in student interest over the past couple of years, it's a tool that will come in very handy. "We took a pretty big cut and this year we had to beg people to be on staff," Kardokus said, adding that the first semester staff roster totaled 19 students, down from 30 last year.

That's turning around, noted Rickard, who so far this year has been a photo department of one. Using larger photographs and climbing a bit farther out on the limb with visual content has fueled interest from students who now want to wield a camera for the Cedar Post.

"We've got huge interest for the second semester," the photo editor said.

Getting back to the days when there was a waiting list to join the Cedar Post staff would be nice, these students agreed, but the quest for quality at the monthly newspaper is more than a numbers game, according to Gearlds.

"In the mid-80s, they were publishing the Cedar Post every week," the advisor said. "And that was with eight people putting it out."

Bob Hamilton was more than 20 years into his tenure as advisor at that point. The newsroom he captained was filled with the noisy clack of typewriters and layout was cut-and-paste in the literal sense, not just a computer design allusion to the process. Still, the Cedar Post managed to meet its weekly deadline, sometimes with a skeleton crew.

"I was less concerned about numbers than I was about quality," Hamilton wrote in an e-mail response to questions for this article. "One year we had only five CP staffers the first semester and still managed to publish weekly."

By the time Hamilton retired in 1990, all four of his children had worked on the Cedar post staff, said his granddaughter, Erin Daniels, who served as the paper's advisor for five years. She is now coordinator for the High School Journalism Initiative at The Spokesman-Review.

When Daniels' last class graduated in 2005, she had watched the paper take home seventh-, eighth- and fourth-prize National Scholastic Press Association honors for the years 2003, 2004 and 2005, respectively.

The national recognition came as a response to hard-hitting stories that involved in-depth reporting, she recalled. Her favorite award was attached to a feature on what it was like to be a high school student enrolled in the SHS special education program. Reporters shadowed special education students for several days to get a complete picture of their lives at school. During the process, reporters were seated with one of the developmentally disabled students at lunch when a sophomore taunted their source from another table.

They did not intervene, but they did take notes. They also followed the bully down the hallway and cornered him for an interview about the motivation for his behavior. The answers to their pointed questions were awkward, apologetic - and all included in the final piece.

Other issues that came up while Daniels advised the staff included teen pregnancy and gay awareness. Her staff, she said, never shied away from controversial topics if they considered them to have news value. The administration, meanwhile, made no attempts to rein the students in.

"When they tackled a big issue, we never had anyone coming after us," Daniels said. "I found that if I trained them right and coached them enough, they always came to good decisions. And if you do a good job, there's nothing for anyone to complain about."

In her five years of advising the Cedar Post staff, Daniels learned what she called "the dance" of putting out a high school paper while working with school administrators. Despite being the brunt of fairly regular lampoons in the form of student editorials and cartoons, the people working above her were impressed. Enough so that when Sandpoint High School Principal Jim Soper and Lake Pend Oreille School District Superintendent Mark Berryhill jointly announced their retirement plans in late-2005, the men saved the story for the Cedar Post. All other news outlets were forced to reference the school paper as their source when they followed the headline the next day.

"So we scooped everybody with a huge story," said Daniels.

Principals also sought ink in the Cedar Post while Hamilton was on the job, even if it painted them in a less-than-favorable light.

"One principal told me that he was disappointed when he wasn't ripped in the Cedar Post," Hamilton said. "He thought it meant he wasn't doing his job."

While the current staff feels it would have Kiebert's support if it went after a contentious story, some reporters have the opinion that there are no such topics awaiting coverage at SHS.

"I feel like we have the freedom to do those stories - I don't feel like we can't do them," said News Editor Keegan Dunn. "There just aren't that many issues here."

That response seems surprising, since the student population at SHS makes it the equivalent of one of the larger "communities" in the region and the high school age demographic would appear to be ripe with evocative story fodder.

From her office, Kiebert believes the school packs as much punch as ever in terms of stories that can raise eyebrows.

"Last year, they came to me with a story on teenage pregnancy and there was some push-back from parents," she said. "There have also been stories about the pros and cons of sex before marriage and lowering the drinking age to 18. That's pretty controversial stuff.

"I've had teachers ask me, 'How can you let them run that story?' and my response is, 'This is a student-run newspaper and freedom of speech is the best way to go, not only for students, but the principal, as well,'" Kiebert added. "My level of confidence has built up due to the professional reporting done by the staff."

Another thing that apparently needs to be built up is overall student interest - both in school news and print media.

"I remember when I was a freshman," said Paulina Gralow, sports editor. "There was total excitement on the day the Cedar Post came out."

Why, then, don't students still have the same reaction to reading the paper?

"Because our generation doesn't even need to know information," said Riley Millar, who works on the paper's graphics. "We just need to know where to find information."

Meranda Carter, also on the graphics side of the Cedar Post, noted that the paper recently addressed this same topic.

"Last issue, we had a column about reading," she said.

"I didn't read that," said Gralow.

Current Cedar Post staffers are upbeat about Gearlds' ability to rekindle interest in the journalism program by teaching writing skills and attracting new talent. They don't, however, buy the fact that the paper has somehow fallen from its past glory.

"I think people will always say the Cedar Post is going downhill," said Arts & Culture Editor Isaac Dunne. "They always remember it as being better than it was."

Those who watch the publication from the outside are hopeful that the turnover and disaffection that have plagued the publication will give way to greater stability and higher enrollment.

Sandpoint Magazine Editor Billie Jean Plaster, who sits on the Cedar Post advisory board and acted as editor-in-chief during the 1984-'85 school year, believes advisor longevity and recruiting students who want to pursue journalism as a career will be keys to a Cedar Post comeback.

"There's a legacy there that needs to be upheld," she said.