The next generation: City of Perry holds ‘Junior Journalist’ program for local youth

PERRY, Ga. — Ryleigh Gingras is 11-years-old. She attends 6th grade here in Houston County and, unlike many of her peers, Ryleigh is a journalist — one of Perry’s junior journalists.

Since the summer of ’22, the city of Perry has taken several local children under their wing and given them the opportunity to learn valuable skills in the world of journalism, working with cameras and practicing with audio equipment, putting in time in front of and behind the camera, and even interviewing subjects — most likely on topics they know very little about.

Ryleigh is just one of 11 students participating in the program. She told The Journal she got involved with the junior journalists, “because [she] wanted to get involved with the community.”

“We move around a lot. It’s nice to get to know new people,” Ryleigh said.

So far, she said, she’s done a lot to learn more about speaking confidently to others, and has attended several city events. A lot of her time has been spent getting hands on experience with some of the tools of the trade.

“I like to learn new things, and I thought it was just really interesting to learn about.”

When she gets older, Ryleigh hopes to be an author or a travel journalist.

“I feel like the Perry Junior Journalist Program is the perfect opportunity to work on those skills.”

Dawn Scott is a volunteer instructor with the city of Perry, and is the one helping to provide Ryleigh and her peers with their new skill set.

Scott works professionally as a family engagement specialist with the Georgia Department of Education. She has master’s degree in educational technology from Georgia College and State University. She also works as a media coordinator alongside her husband at the church they attend.

All of these skills sets — working to engage communities and families, understanding media technology and having real-world experience in doing broadcast work — have combined to create an individual with all the skills necessary to instruct a class on broadcast journalism.

She got her opportunity to share her skills when attending the Perry Area Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Perry event. There’s where she met Leisure Services Director Sedrick Swan. Together they developed the Junior Journalism Program.

“The city has wonderful family events, but I’m always concerned about that middle, gray group, and trying to engage them and keep them out of trouble, to help them be involved in their community,” Scott said. “[The Perry Junior Journalism Program] is something [Swan] has always wanted to do, and it’s something that I was passionate about.”

The program started with a class on the basics — simple camera work, how to use recording equipment and a bit of script writing. After the students finished the course, it was time to do something more hands-on: they broke into teams, and started covering city events.

“We had them really deep dive in special events,” Scott said. “They did Food Truck Fridays, Art in the Park, the Fourth of July, everything, our journalists were there, they were covering it.

“Each team had a camera person, we had a reporter one [and a] reporter two, and then we were also doing the editing ourselves. It was definitely a team effort.”

In the new “semester,” as Scott calls them, the junior journalists have taken a deep dive into interviews, and the knowledge necessary for speaking to subjects.

“Now our focus is to do a different part of journalism: interviews,” Scott said. “We’re doing a ‘Day in the Life’ series. They’re picking different people in the city of Perry and interviewing them about their great contributions to the city of Perry, finding out about them and their work, their passions.”

Once they’ve mastered interviews, Scott will send them on a new path, and then another, until the two year program is done. At that point, the junior journalists will hold auditions and accept new students.

When The Journal finally spoke with Swan himself, he said this program is just one of several that the city has put together for local children, providing quality of life, even for the kids who don’t want to play sports.

“The vision, the dream of this program was to provide another opportunity — we know that all kids will not become professional or collegiate athletes — we thought it would be beneficial to give them a skill set that could turn into a career,” Swan said. “We know the growth in media, social, written, video, we see a trend that it’s going to continue to be around for many, many years.

“We though that we would try to form a training program for the kids, get them introduced to it, expose them to the opportunity. We really wanted to give them a voice.”

Swan told The Journal that the group has worked to teach these children how to successfully tell their story, or voice the concerns they have that may impact their community.

At the same time, the city works to ensure they provide these kids with the skills and values necessary to journalism, all while being an entity themselves that sometimes has to be held accountable by journalists: the government. They do this, Swan said, through transparency. By inviting questions from the outside, as well as internally, they help create a program that can gain the skills necessary for the future.

In addition to the Junior Journalist Program, the city also supports a Perry Chess Club, and recently held a video production class. In the future, they may even hold course on conversational American Sign Language, and a vision board course for high school juniors and seniors planning their futures.

“My mission, my goal is to show how recreation and leisure is almost synonymous with quality of life,” Swan said. “That’s my personal and professional mission. We, as a whole, care about the community and want to give them as many opportunities as possible.”

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