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Journalism students explore their creative sides in Park City

From left to right: Zach Minter, staff writer; Izzy Morris, features editor; Brewster Hutchinson, editor-in-chief; Brent Johnson, editor-at-large; Colton Hawkins, staff writer; Scarlett Tary, staff writer.
Park City High School
From left to right: Zach Minter, staff writer; Izzy Morris, features editor; Brewster Hutchinson, editor-in-chief; Brent Johnson, editor-at-large; Colton Hawkins, staff writer; Scarlett Tary, staff writer.

High school journalism students don’t have to wait until college to explore that field. They can start now by joining Park City High School’s newspaper.

Park City High School offers two avenues for its students to study journalism; online and on-camera.

The online version is the school’s student-run newspaper called Park City Prospector. It produces articles including sports reports, feature articles such as students' favorite classes, opinion articles, and the monthly advice column Dear Isaiah.

The newspaper had been in print up until 2018 before transitioning to being fully online. It used to be a class supervised by teachers such as Jake Jobe and Matt Nagel.

At the end of last school year, Nagel announced he was leaving the high school and moving to Treasure Mountain Junior High. This meant the newspaper was going to become an after-school club.

Brewster Hutchinson writes for the Prospector. He said he started in journalism because he has always been a sports fanatic and many of his friends play sports. This was a topic he was eager to write about.

Hutchinson said that starting out as the paper's sports editor introduced him to an assortment of journalistic avenues.

“It allowed me the opportunity to write more about, you know, different things, whether it be like profiles on people, or, like more opinionated articles, rather than just sports news.”

When Nagel was set to leave the high school he appointed Hutchinson to be the next editor-in-chief. Hutchinson said his new position has been valuable.

“I was excited, because I had some pretty strong visions for the newspaper and what I thought it could be. And I've been trying my best to, you know, make that a reality this year. And it's kind of tough sometimes. But I think that has taught me a lot of lessons and has been a valuable, valuable high school experience for me. And so being editor in chief has just been a fully net positive experience.”

Another writer for the Prospector is Brent Johnson. He started as the paper’s managing editor. He was in charge of publishing anything visual like photos from school events and even podcasts.

This school year he became the paper's editor-at-large. In the new position, he is in charge of editing all of the feature articles.

Johnson discovered his love for journalism during his sophomore year while reading Ernest Hemingway.

“I was writing scripts for the film festival and so I found Ernest Hemingway that way, because I started reading. And Hemingway started as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. And that's, you know, his writing I admire so much that I thought I might teach myself journalism.”

Johnson’s favorite part of the newspaper is the freedom he has with the kinds of articles he writes.

“You'll notice a lot of my articles are kind of oddball weirdo articles. They don't get views, but they are they're complete my own ideas. There everything I want to say.”

The Park City Prospector meets every Tuesday after school in Ms. McKay’s room. Any students who are interested in writing for the paper can email msims23@pcstudents.us.

Read articles from the Park City Prospector here.