Via Erie Reader, June 21, 2023
…Teen journalists for Saegertown High School’s Panther Press in Crawford County are forging ahead with hard questions and deep-dive reporting, even though Stacey Hetrick, American literature teacher and newspaper advisor, is on medical leave because of backlash she has been subjected to due to student coverage of school board meetings, political campaigns, threats to LGBTQIA+ rights, and a new library policy in the Penncrest School District that allows books to be challenged, reviewed, and possibly removed.
“In a participatory democracy we want people to be informed,” said Hetrick. She revived the dormant Panther Press in 2006 at the request of Randy Deemer, Saegertown principal at the time, and with the enthusiastic support and technical assistance of the Meadville Tribune and its publisher, Jeanne Yount.
The Panther Press is an elective, meeting five days a week; students receive credit for a computer course. The print newspaper publishes six to eight times a year and students update the website, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook posts daily. The Meadville Tribune still prints the student paper and provides “continued mentorship in design, principles of reporting, and journalism ethics,” Hetrick said.
In 2009, Hetrick was named Pennsylvania Journalism Teacher of the Year and in 2011, the Panther Press won the first of many Student Keystone Awards from the Pennsylvania News Media Association. In 2015, Hetrick was asked to serve on the Pennsylvania School Press Association’s executive board. Her immersion in journalism education is “the greatest learning activity in my life,” Hetrick said.
“In order to be a journalist, you have to be interested in things that might not ordinarily interest you. You have to be willing to do research and understand what’s important to the public,” she said…