A new journalism-media program is under development at Weir High School this year, and they have many new features in the works. Newspaper, yearbook, and journalism are working hand in hand to produce ideas and bring them to life.

The newspaper class has set their focus on opening a website, producing video announcements, and printing a monthly paper. The newspaper staff is working on pushing out the first publication of the year.

Mrs. Bricker, the advisor of the media program, has taken over the newspaper and created an introduction to journalism class.

“It’s all really exciting, but it also can be overwhelming at the beginning when you’re trying to do all the things all at once,” she said. Each staff member chose a topic to write about for this cycle.

­In a survey sent out to the journalism staff, the students decided that sports, student life, and controversial topics should have the most coverage by the media program.

A poll was sent out to the journalism students to decide on a new name for the program. After lots of debate, Weir Student Media won the overall vote.

“I do think that it fits the program. Mostly because right in the phrase you know exactly what we’re doing, and that’s I think really important when you’re looking at a brand name (especially on a student level),” said Bricker when asked about the name of the program.

The Weir Student Media staff has three classes with different jobs and responsibilities. The yearbook class is responsible for taking pictures and designing pages in the yearbook for students to purchase. They also create the senior video. The newspaper staff has set their focus on opening a website, uploading video announcements, and printing a monthly paper. “Once the students are trained well enough we can post daily if we really wanted to,” Bricker said in regards to the website. The website is available to post daily briefs on topics such as sports and social events.

However, publishing is not the only part of journalism. In a survey sent out to students, they chose their favorite part about the media program. Rayna Hoover, a journalism student, said her favorite part of the media program was learning about court cases. Sarah Stewart said she’s always wanted to know how to work her camera and journalism was a perfect opportunity. Roy Groppe, however, said he enjoys sitting back to watch everyone do their magic in yearbook.

Students in journalism class range from grades 9-12, and they learn many aspects of the world in news. This class teaches students how to write articles, business techniques, how to take photos and videos, leadership skills, design, and more. The work done by journalism students also has a chance of being published in the paper.

Throughout all three classes, there is something for everyone to enjoy in the media program.