Students win journalism awards

LYNN – Two budding writers from Lynn English High School got a glimpse of the journalism industry this summer, both taking home individual writing awards in the process.Seniors Carmen Barefield and Jennifer Mageary spent a week at the New England High School Journalism Collaborative this summer, joining other high school students from across the state in learning the basics of professional journalism and eventually collaborating on the program’s publication, The Business Debut.Barefield and Mageary worked as reporter and editor respectively, producing two stories, one cartoon and one editorial during the program. Barefield won the Collaborative Pulitzer Award for best overall journalist, while Mageary received the Best Editorial Award for an opinion piece on affirmative action.Both girls described the week as both challenging and fun, but more importantly, say it gave them a leg up heading to college and beyond.”It was a good experience with college life, even if it was just for a week,” said Barefield.”It was really a blast of the real world,” added Mageary. “You have people there telling you ‘this isn’t good enough’ or ‘you have to re-write that article.'”Professional journalists and newspaper veterans led the program, which took place at UMass Boston and Regis College. Aside from working on the publication, students also toured the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New England Cable News and the JFK Library.While the experience was informative and fun at times, the girls say they also learned that working in the media is much harder than it looks.Both expressed frustrations with having to write fewer words than they are used to and working hard on a story that may never actually make it to print.”I have always been sold on (being a journalist). I just did this as a way to ease in to it and learn more about it,” she said. “It was hard and it was exhausting, I spent some nights in my room at times when I’d usually be out with my friends trying to come up with story ideas.”Mageary has decided that she wants to attend journalism school, while Barefield said she is not sure if she wants to focus more on English, as she enjoys writing short stories and novels more.Either way, both students are happy with the experience and say attending the program fed their hunger for writing.”I am definitely doing it again, I had a great time there,” said Mageary. “It is not just a way to learn to be a better journalist, but also a way to meet new people in your field.”