Eagle Eye supervisor says writers of profiles of 17 teens and teachers who died ‘wanted to capture the essence of who each person was’

Jaime Guttenberg dancing. Swim captain Nicholas Dworet mid-stroke in the pool. Peter Wang in his JROTC uniform, standing proud in front of the American flag.

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The latest issue of the Eagle Eye, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school news magazine, is a memorial to the 17 students and teachers who were killed less than two months ago in one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.

Teenage survivors of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, have galvanized the national movement for gun control reform, giving advocates hope politicians might finally pay a price for a vicious cycle of inaction.

The Eagle Eye’s student journalists took over Guardian US last month during the March for Our Lives, which drew hundreds of thousands to rallies in Washington DC and around the world. Eagle Eye staffers assigned stories and reported from the Washington rally for the Guardian.



But the student writers have also continued to mourn their classmates and teachers, a process that has turned ordinary school activities – like publishing a student magazine – into acts of remembrance.

“They really wanted to capture the essence of who each person was,” Eagle Eye adviser Melissa Falkowski said of the memorial issue. “That was the mission of the issue. They were just really determined, even if it was going to be hard, they were determined to do it right.

The latest issue of the Eagle Eye, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school news magazine. Photograph: Screengrab

“For some students, especially the ones who knew the people they were writing about, it was cathartic because it was a place for them to put their grief.”

The Eagle Eye staff decided to produce a memorial issue just days after the shooting, Falkowski said. Many students assigned to write profiles knew the teenagers and teachers who died. Writing was often emotional.

The student who profiled Dworet interviewed both of his parents in their home, in Nicholas’s bedroom. The student journalist was crying by the end of the interview, Falkowski said. So were his parents.

“We left it for people to choose what they wanted to do,” Falkowski said. “Some kids weren’t ready to write any stories at all. When someone was having a particularly hard time, or they weren’t feeling comfortable, another editor would step in: ‘I’m going to do this interview for you.’ The kids leaned on each other a lot. The [profiles] were really hard to write.”

Even the process of editing the profiles was “overwhelming”, Falkowski said. Reading them brought home the enormity of the loss. She remembered crying as she tried to copy-edit the issue.

I didn’t have to think about the fact that Carmen passed away. I could just think about all the great things about her Nikhita Nookala

At times, the student journalists had to step away from working to process their emotions, even as they worked around the clock to meet their deadline, the evening before leaving to cover the March for Our Lives in Washington.

Nikhita Nookala, 17, a copy editor, wrote the profile of Meadow Pollack, 18, and helped write another.

“When you profile them,” she said, “you learn their whole personality and what they were like, and what they liked to do with their time. It makes you think, ‘If I knew this person, we could have been friends.’”

Nookala lost her friend Carmen Schentrup, 16. Reading her profile, she said, “was something that I could appreciate. It was something that I didn’t have to think about the fact that she passed away. I could just think about all the great things about her. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to copy-edit.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The March for Our Lives processes along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Photograph: UPI / Barcroft Images

The Eagle Eye distributed the magazine at the high school on Friday, the end of the first week back from spring break.

“This was our way of saying goodbye to them,” Nookala said. “Just making the issue and seeing it printed and published was therapeutic in a way. It was our way of moving on from it, as much as we can at this point. This is our way of finally put that chapter to some kind of end, even though it will obviously never really be over.”

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Among readers, Falkowski said, the response to the memorial issue was positive.

“Today while reading this, I cried so hard that I had to walk out of class,” Stoneman Douglas student Lauren Hogg tweeted on Friday, writing: “It was so beautifully put together and realistic that I felt my friends and all the 17 that passed were there with me reading it.”

The Florida Sun-Sentinel reprinted a version of the memorial issue on Sunday, sharing the student’ journalists work with the broader community. A digital issue of the magazine is available to view online for free or a $10 donation to support student journalists’ trips to national conferences, Falkowski said.

The Eagle Eye and the high school’s yearbook, The Aerie, are also raising money online to support the school’s journalism program.

