That was my first instruction to the Pulse teen journalists when we were allowed to enter The Herald-Mail Headline News' brand, spanking-new broadcast studio.
Nearly all of the six high school seniors are super smart kids, but I wasn't taking any chances.
It seems like forever since we started on this broadcast journey. Earlier this year, we had made a decision to stop publishing a weekly Pulse teen section.
It was hard adjustment for not only the teens, but for me, too. What was next?
It was clear that what I needed to do was show these kids the future of journalism — even if I wasn't sure exactly what the future looked like myself.
I've always felt that what we did with the Pulse team is to encourage young minds to go into journalism. But it's hard to say to them, "You know, in five years you'll be doing such-and-such."
When I was a college freshman in the early 1990s, I think that my professors had an easier time forecasting the future — at least in the short-term. Thanks to the late Steve Jobs, we understood that computers were our future. Things were going to get faster, and, hopefully, more efficient. Paste up was gone, Quark was in.
But there are things now I think they never could have guessed. The Internet for one. It not only changed journalism — with its interaction with readers, sources and obtaining truths and myths faster — it changed society as a whole.
So as I struggled to find the Pulse teens something to do, I was thinking about what their Internet would be. And frankly, I was stumped.
But I do know that journalism is moving more toward video. More affordable video equipment and easy-as-pie editing programs allowed newspapers of all sizes to offer another way to tell a story.
As I pitched the idea of video to the collection of teens, I thought I had found at least a glimpse of their future. After all, YouTube is to this generation what MTV was to mine.
What I got wasn't a bunch of teens embracing it, but some who were freaked out. We had talked first about doing a show for Herald-Mail Headline News.
"We should do an hour!" they said.
After a few runs, they quickly realized that wasn't for them. Thirty minutes would be too much, as well.
So now we are in the midst of developing a teen-friendly program, for which we're working out the kinks. The plan? A fun debate on trends, in-house studio interviews and man-on-the-street interviews — at least for now. The hope? That it will be good enough to be on HMHN.
As they get more experience under their fashionable belts, I'm hoping they'll be able to produce some stellar work.
And then, they can touch anything in that broadcast studio they want.
For any high school student interested in joining Pulse , email me at crystal.schelle@herald-mail.com. Pulse meets at 6 p.m. Thursdays at The Herald-Mail.
Crystal Schelle is Lifestyle editor and Pulse coordinator. Contact her at 301-791-7136 or crystal.schelle@herald-mail.com. Or follow her on Twitter @hm_lifestyle and @crystalschelle.
