Warrensburg High School students are taking lead from local journalism professors during their spare time with the new Rookie Reporter program.

Joe Moore, the program coordinator for digital media production, and Carol Hassler, past adviser of the Warrensburg student paper, have been working together to teach the rules of journalism to a group of students.

Hassler said she and Moore sat down over the summer to brainstorm ideas about how they could get students excited about producing content for digitalBURG, the media platform at the University of Central Missouri.

Hassler said she has known Moore for several years, and the two of them sat down this summer to discuss the promotion of UCM’s journalism program and how they can reach out to high school students and form a connection between the two.

Hassler was the school newspaper adviser for 29 years, and she said the program ended about 2 years ago.

Moore said the idea had been around for a few years and the redesign of digitalBURG made now an ideal time to get Rookie Reporters going.

“Matt (Bird-Meyer) and I had been talking about it for a few years that we wanted to get high school students more involved, particularly because Warrensburg High did away with the student newspaper,” Moore said. “With the revisioning of the Muleskinner and the rebranding and development of the new platform, this just felt like a really good time to attack it.”

Bird-Meyer, the adviser of the Muleskinner, said he praises Moore for taking the initiative to get the program started.

“I think it’s important to get students involved in journalism early because it’s such an integral part of our democratic society,” Bird-Meyer said.

The students that are involved do all the work for the Rookie Reporters program during their free time.

“It started off with brainstorming on some things that we can do, and Joe talked to them about how we can do photo stories, podcasts, and articles,” Hassler said.

Moore said he’s been teaching the basics of journalism to the students since Rookie Reporters began. Moore goes into the high school on Wednesdays and Fridays to instruct the students.

“We give them the instruction and talk to them about AP style, format for how to make a video, and talk to them about writing in inverted pyramid style versus a structure for a feature story, so I’m coming out and giving them the basics,” Moore said.

The students took on their first big project, homecoming, in full force.

“They brainstormed ideas, and the first big project was covering our homecoming. That’s a good place to start, so Joe has come in and worked to show them skills on how to videotape, ask good questions, interview people, write good captions and pick good photos,” Hassler said.

Grace Bushmeyer, one of the students involved in Rookie Reporters, said she and another student did the interviews for the homecoming royalty at the game.

Bushmeyer said she is looking into journalism and communication in general as a future career.

“I don’t exactly know what I want to do as a career when I get older, but I know that I want it to be more with communication and not with math or science,” Bushmeyer said. “I would like to write in a journalistic way because I think that it’s interesting and I’ve never learned it before.”

Hassler said she thinks it is important for her students to gain authentic experience while also showcasing what is going on within the walls of Warrensburg High School.

“I think there’s something exciting about producing something when there is a real audience to see it,” she said. “I think they’re going to have fun promoting different parts of Warrensburg High School and a lot of people don’t know what really goes on here.”

Moore said it’s important to get students adequately trained in the art of journalism.

“In a democracy, you have to have journalism. You have to have a free press and a free press has to do the job right,” he said.

Moore said he plans on carrying out the program for the next several years.

“The more I get to share about journalism, the better. We’re always trying to recruit and bring new students into our program because I believe we have a very strong program and I want to make it stronger, so if I can get to them early, we can get them excited about it and then get them into our program then that makes our program better,” Moore said.

Warrensburg High School students should contact Mrs. Hassler if they are wanting to get involved with Rookie Reporters.