E.T. Rodriguez says journalism should be in schools and teachers need training

Hi, how are you?

Hello, Council and Eric Dinowitz, who I know.

My name is E.T.

Rodriguez.

I'm actually a professional journalist as well.

I received a letter of recognition from Councilman Dinowitz when I resigned as editor-in-chief of the Rivadale Press.

I'm also a...

project manager with Press Pass NYC, and I'm also a professor at Lehman College.

So as a journalist, I lead my classes with a lot of news-based articles, and I tell my students to have a curiosity for the world around them.

My students are fresh out of high school, presumably with their Regents diploma, and an overwhelming amount of them do not have a curiosity for the environment around them.

They don't know what's going on in their own neighborhoods.

They are cripplingly shy, suffering from public speaking skills, and they do not know how to put their thoughts on paper.

But as a workshop leader with Press Pass NYC, I have seen smart and articulate students, a lot like the ones that you've seen today, who are civically engaged young adults.

And I know we celebrated $280,000 of investment in teaching.

However, most of those schools, as Beth has said, don't have a dedicated journalism teacher.

And they have to pull from their faculty who are already busy and overwhelmed with teaching their classes.

So we, as she said, we offer three years of training and support for free to the teachers whose schools agree to give them the journalism class or club, which has enabled us to build back student press in more than 40 schools and counting.

You know, our program also, we're going to try to set up a Bronx Journalism Hub, which we're announcing in January, which I'm leading the project for, in a historically under-resourced neighborhood and in an area that's already being considered a media desert, right?

Bronx Times down to one full-time reporter, News Bronx 12 on a skeleton crew, and Norwood News just, you know.

And on this hiatus.

So, yeah.

Yes, journalism in schools is important, but it's also important to train the teachers so that these students can be effective, civically engaged.

Also, I dropped out of high school, didn't take my regents, failed my regents three times, went to school, got my bachelor's, got my master's.

Here I am today.

Regents aren't necessary.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I also want to point out the Norwood News is in my district.

It was one of like two papers in my district, the other one being Viridale Press.

And yes, Norwood News shut down.

Very harmful to the community, for sure.