A Sycamore youth is sharpening her reporting skills thanks to an international journalism program for children.
Evy Bingle is in 5th grade. The 10-year-old was selected to take part in the 2023-24 Scholastic Kids Pressprogram. This international program has been around for over two decades. The magazine solicits youth to cover local stories that children find important because of the impact it may have on them. It’s basically — quote — “news for kids, by kids.”
Evy said the news program was the perfect opportunity because she was already taking part in an afterschool club called SpartanTV Jr. She began this two-year project when she was 9.
Evy said the idea to get into the news business started once she started getting compliments from others.
“Even like without SpartanTV. People were like, ‘oh, you have a really good vocabulary or whatever,” she said. “And I was like, ‘oh, thank you.' Like, 'you could be a journalist.' ”
Applicants must be between 10 and 14 years old. Suzanne McCabe is the editor of the magazine. She said that range is optimal.
“We find that by the age of 10, kids are very eloquent and articulate and can talk with important people and make their voices heard and also just conduct great interviews,” she said. “By the age of 14, they may be ready to move on to their high school newspaper or to other activities.”
McCabe said applicants are asked to submit an example news story that they wrote. The guidelines include talking with someone who is elevating the community, providing story ideas and selling how good of a reporter they can be. Evy chose to highlight a local organization that enriches children for her submission story.
“She wrote about a food pantry in her area and the needs that children have,” McCabe said. “I think there was a fire in one area that made it very difficult for kids to even get a meal. And often we think we should shield children from difficult topics, when in fact, they're coping with them.”
And many alumni of the program have gone on to become reporters.
Nicholas Wu was a part of the program when he was 13. This Michigan native is now a congressional reporter at POLITICO. Wu even covered the Jan. 6 insurrection. He said he applied for the program because he thought it sounded cool to be a kid reporter. He said this program gave him on-the-ground training that he may not have gotten as a kid.
“If I remember correctly, I reviewed a book," he said. "I covered the Detroit Auto Show. And I think I covered an exhibit at the Detroit Science Center too.”
Wu said this project was a foundational experience for him. He is a part of the Asian American Journalist Association and is helping other aspiring journalists.
“I'm a board member of our DC chapter, where I helped manage some of our programming there,” he said. “And then last year, I served as a mentor for AAJA's, basically, college student mentorship program, where I helped teach basically a group of college students about feature writing and help them bring a whole feature writing project from inception to its completion.”
As for Evy, she’s busy gathering story ideas for her new venture. There is one story that she’s looking forward to telling.
“We have a festival in our town called Pumpkin Fest. And that's really special to me,” she said. “Because a lot of my best memories have been at Pumpkin Fest.”
This town festival started several decades ago.
Evy will have plenty of support as she works through her stories. McCabe said the editing process happens over the phone and other communication channels. There are example videos that assist with coming up with story ideas, finding sources, and even writing effective headlines.
Evy said it’s important for children to see their peers doing unique things.
“Because even though sometimes, people don't say it, sometimes you really just feel like ‘oh, because I'm a kid, I can't really do much,’" she said. "But I wouldn't be here right now, without pushing that aside and knowing that no matter what, how, however old you are, however, however young you are, that you can do anything.”
Ben Bingle is Evy’s father. He said this is a tremendous experience so far and he is looking forward to seeing where this opportunity will lead his daughter.
Works by Scholastic Kid Reporters can be found at the Scholastic Kids Press website and in the classroom magazine.
