Eastbrook in the Newsroom

On Monday 11th May, Miss Wood, Ms Begum, and Ms Timms were lucky enough to take a group of Year 9 and 10 students to the Guardian Newspaper Headquarters by King’s Cross Station. At the Guardian, Media Studies students, and those who have opted to take this subject next year, worked together to take part in two exciting workshops.

The first workshop saw students investigate ‘Fake News’. In the session they were taught how to spot ‘Fake News’ articles and images online, and the differences between disinformation and misinformation. Our students worked in news teams to investigate a series of stories, and uncover the ‘truth’ behind the headlines. When they had finished their research, they presented their findings to the group in the form of short news bulletins, which were great fun to watch.

After lunch, the second workshop began and the students began to see how a real life newsroom operates. Again, working in their news teams, they were able to generate ideas about what was going on in their local area and discuss which local news stories would be worth reporting about. Following the process used by professional journalists, they learnt about news values and were able to come up with a story each which was impactful, immediate and had real human interest within the Eastbrook community. The ideas which were generated in this workshop will form the basis of news articles, which will be written by the students and eventually submitted to the Guardian.

This trip provided an exciting opportunity for our students to see how a major global newspaper operates, and to get some insight into what it would be like to work as a journalist. Eastbrook students had some fantastic ideas, which they shared across the two workshops and we look forward to seeing them translate what they learnt at the Guardian into some meaningful pieces of Media.