Friday, May 26, 2006 — Miss Seashore's class at Millsberry Academy is bustling with activity after last week's field trip to the offices of the Millsberry Gazette. The students are now all hard at work, putting what they've learned at the Gazette into practice in the classroom. Miss Seashore invites all Academy students to drop by her class, to take part in this newspaper simulation, which is one of the most challenging projects ever undertaken at Millsberry Academy. Excited Academy students are already lined up to take part in the project, waiting eagerly for their chance to be Editor-in-Chief for a day. Luckily, a few of Miss Seashore's pupils have been able to take some time and share a few of the insights they gained from their behind-the-scenes look at the newspaper business.

"I have to admit," said Danielle Dodd, of Westridge, "I was expecting the field trip to just be a boring tour of the Gazette offices, but it turned out to be so much more! We got to actually take part in running the Gazette for a day. We helped choose which stories would be written for the paper, and saw the editors and artists put everything together. It was so awesome!"

Miss Seashore is pleased with the positive reactions she's received from her students and is planning to have them put what they learned on the trip to use in the classroom. "The students learned a lot about the writing, editorial, and artistic processes involved in the newspaper industry, plus they also learned that newspaper-publishing is a business. The staff of the Gazette did a great job of explaining how to build circulation, manage staff correctly to make profits, and keep readers satisfied."

"We're going to give running our own version of the Gazette a try as a classroom project," George Davies, of Golden Valley, told the Gazette. "The writers at the Gazette really stressed the importance of choosing a variety of stories to keep readers interested. I'm looking forward to deciding what our stories will be about and how long they should be. It really seems to be a balancing act between quality, quantity, variety, and meeting deadlines!"

The Academy students are sure to have plenty of eager readers, but have they learned enough to know how to keep the paper balanced, interesting, and timely? That will be the challenge they encounter in running their own newspaper! Stop by Miss Seashore's classroom to see if you have what it takes to run a newspaper too!