Kid Reporter Field Guide

November 1, 2024
Grades 4-7 Holzer, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee, provides a lively and informative guide for aspiring young reporters on writing as a professional correspondent. Chapters are devoted to journalists in the fields of news reporting, sports, features, opinion, and review writing and describe the kinds of stories they focus on. For example, Holzer says that although opinion writing differs from news reporting--opinion writing usually includes a "call to action"--opinion pieces must be "rooted in truth and backed by facts." Tips are provided on interviewing and taking notes, and practice assignments are found throughout for aspiring young journalists to complete, including instructions for a Q&A piece and movie reviews. Other chapters cover news literacy and noted journalists from history, including Ida B. Wells and Nellie Bly. TIME for Kids official kid reports are also profiled, apt for this iteration of the TIME for Kids series. Throughout, readers will find engaging sidebars, illustrations, and photographs, along with a bibliography. This guide provides invaluable information and practical examples for aspiring young journalists.

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January 1, 2025
Useful tips for young journalists--and for their readers, too. Holzer, a working reporter herself, offers brief, general advice about picking topics and finding an angle, setting up and conducting interviews, keeping accurate records, and livening up news stories with well-chosen details. Though she skips over blogs, vlogs, and broadcast media and only briefly covers photojournalism and editorial cartoons, she does explain at least some of the differences between news and feature stories, sports reportage, opinion pieces, and reviews. She also provides a taste of journalistic history with nods to Nellie Bly, Ida B. Wells, and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (among other luminaries), lets several cub reporters in theTIMEfor Kids program chime in with their own experiences and insights, and offers readers a handful of practice challenges like writing a movie review and a letter to the editor. In line with her stance that the pursuit of truth is a crucial journalistic objective, she includes guidelines for evaluating the trustworthiness of information sources--a section that should be of interest to general readers as well as conscientious budding journalists. Bright spot graphics and color photos of smiling reporters diverse in terms of race and age further lighten this airy introduction. "Go forth!" the author grandly closes, find the stories that need to be told, and "apply what you've learned in this book by practicing good journalism habits." A slick overview of basic procedures and principles. (bibliography)(Nonfiction. 7-10)

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