"It's quite possible that Lakota East seniors Kevin Li and Dana Sand will never earn a paycheck for journalism in their lives."
.jpg)
.jpg)
But that's irrelevant when the monthly deadline approaches for the duo's award-winning news magazine, Spark. Just as generations of high school journalists before them, the co-editors stay at school past 11 p.m. for weeks, corralling a staff of dozens, proofreading pages and making sure that last graphic is just right.
Spark - one of the country's best high school journalism publications - faces many of the same struggles professional journalism has:
Advertising sales are down more than 30 percent since 2005.
Printing costs soared.
The staff struggles with how to adapt to an evolving media environment and keep the attention of an elusive audience.
