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Ciara Bergthold, a junior at Lodi High School, reads the Lodi Flame online in September 2008. The student newspaper has been the victim of budget cuts, and students were turned away from the class this year. (News-Sentinel file photo)
Lodi High newspaper scrapped due to budget, lack of interest
For the last 88 years, Lodi High School has published a regular edition of the Flame student newspaper. But students wanting to sign up for journalism teacher Jerry Pike's course this year were turned away.
The newspaper and related class period is another victim of budget cuts. Tokay High School, however, will publish its first issue at the end of the quarter.
Lodi High Principal Bill Atterberry said the site-level decision was made partly due to waning student interest and partly because of skyrocketing costs to produce the publication.
"Though the decision to eliminate the class may be alarming to those of us who appreciate its value, from a business standpoint there was no question that we made the right choice," said Atterberry, himself a former newspaper adviser. "The budgetary constraints forced us to select classes where we could achieve maximum capacity. We can fill a ceramics class with 35 students, but it has become exceedingly difficult to keep the newspaper staffed with 12 kids."
Both Pike and Atterberry said student interest has steadily been declining. Only 12 enrolled this school year, while at the end of the last school year, there were only 14 students still left.
Pike is sad about the loss of the class and was hoping to pass it on to a fellow teacher, as the load of both the newspaper and the yearbook was getting too heavy. "I didn't want to see it go," he said of his eight-year tenure in the position.
However, had he continued to keep the course, Pike would have given up teaching one period of English, thus passing the burden of more students onto another teacher.
Lodi High student Erika Seiler planned to take Pike's course this fall, but when she called her counselor over the summer, she learned it had been cut.
"I want to be a journalist, so everyone said newspaper is the class to take. Colleges look for that," said the aspiring political writer who instead signed up for yearbook.
Todd Mallory, a 1980 Lodi High graduate who attributes his written communication skills to his journalism teacher and the three years on the Flame staff, is also disappointed in the publication's demise.
"It's just a shame. I got so much out of it 30 years ago," he said. "I learned more about writing in that class than in my English class that focused more on literature and prepositional phrases than writing."
Mallory, who held the positions of sports editor and managing editor, said he has used those writing skills to write sales letters, marketing brochures and Web site text in his career.
"My peers often complimented me to which I always replied, 'I learned it all in my high school journalism class and Mr. Chris Fotheringham.'"
Still, he knows times change.
"I understand the whole budget thing," Mallory said, adding that with the writers, photographers and advertising salespeople, his journalism class easily had 30 people enrolled.
"If I was a student nowadays with all the graduation requirements, I don't know if I would have the time that it took to be on the newspaper."
Pike has encouraged some of his former students to start their own newspaper on the Internet, although they cannot use the copyrighted Flame name.
"It's a real tragedy, especially when students came out of the program so far ahead. They're not going to get those early bylines or that hands-on training. The paper at Delta is basically run by my former students," said Pike.
He believes the publication — which has been printed nearly every year since 1921 — will return, and plans to encourage his peers to take it over or when it comes time to hire new teachers, a replacement who has a journalism background.
In 2005, the News-Sentinel started publishing outstanding work originally printed in the student newspaper.
And, just last year, Pike launched the school's first-ever online student newspaper with its own domain.
It had been Pike's desire for several years to have a Web site showcasing journalism students' work. In an interview last year, he said he hoped it would not only be another publishing platform, but a way to get the school's news out faster.
The Web site is still up, but stories from last fall remain alongside a photo of the last staff.
Atterberry said the cost of running a newspaper has skyrocketed, and the bleak economy made the already-difficult job of selling ads to fund the cost of printing the paper a full-time job Pike just didn't have the time for.
"Students have been reluctant to commit to that aspect of the newspaper, and even though they published an electronic edition on their web-page, the site languished on the World Wide Web," Atterberry told a former student in an e-mail.
Both he and Pike encouraged aspiring journalists to ply their written trade on the yearbook staff.
"Once money is flowing again and we can afford classes with fewer than a dozen students, I'm sure someone will want to try their hand a running the newspaper again. The idea, if not the practice, is enduring," Atterberry said.
Pike added that journalism itself is alive and well on Lodi High's campus in the yearbook class which, too, adheres to the same journalism ethics and teaches students how to take photos and write. "We just don't have a newspaper."
Seiler said many of her peers didn't know about the newspaper being cut at first.
"But news is getting around now, and a lot of people at my school are sad because they really liked the class," she added. "It's a loss of identity for our school."
Contact reporter Jennifer Bonnett at jenniferb@lodinews.com.
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Reader Feedback
1voice wrote on Aug 13, 2009 9:37 AM:
1voice wrote on Aug 13, 2009 9:27 AM:
Readers could get "breaking news updates" in whatever format they preferred-- their computers or Internet-capable phones.
This would not only teach kids NEW news reporting and delivery skills, but could show them how to create new markets and solicit new readership. It would also prepare them for the future of journalism and get them thinking about the marriage of the editorial/business components of a paper. Show them a wall, give them a grappling hook and let them figure out how to get over it! "
Whoa Nellie! wrote on Aug 7, 2009 8:27 AM:
To compare Journalism (Newspaper) to Yearbook (do I dare say Scrapbooking?) is apples & oranges. "
lodimaestro wrote on Aug 6, 2009 3:23 PM:
As far as combining newspaper with yearbook, I would never agree to that. I advise the yearbook class and running both publications from one class period would be nearly impossible and would severely impact the quality of both publications. One class period is hardly enough to do the yearbook alone as it is.
But don't worry. When the budget gets less severe the Lodi Flame will come back. "
freespeech wrote on Aug 6, 2009 2:06 PM:
mom of 2 wrote on Aug 6, 2009 1:21 PM:
Put the paper out once a month, and sell it or have it online. Could be a fundraiser! "
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