Video honorable mention by Nick Saffell, 16, Leland Public School.

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9. Figuring out how, when and where to get your news is key to mental health.



Students wrote about downloading too many apps and getting too many news alerts as they began phase two of their news challenge. But as they began to fiddle with sources and platforms, they figured out what worked for them, whether it was podcasts, videos, briefings and other shorter ways of getting news; apps like Flipboard that aggregate a number of sources; or watching satirical news to relax after reading too much “real” news.



“What I appreciated about turning over this new leaf was how in control I was of my media consumption. No longer was I hearing random stories just because of their momentum; I was reading the stories that I wanted to read — ones I wanted to learn from,” wrote Michelle Yu, 17, of Cresskill High School.

Jaredth Thor, 16, of Merced High School, realized watching CNN 10 was a lot easier than reading The New York Times:

I’ve been noticing myself going to CNN 10 first instead of The New York Times. I really did not understand at first but then I realize that I would rather watch a 10 minute video with Carl Azuz talking about trivial events rather than read a gigantic essay that goes back and forth, using rhetorical devices, counterarguments, analysis, etc. That is the beauty of having a news outlet that promotes videos, the information comes quick and is easily gathered turning a chore of reading into a fast paced interesting session of knowledge.

And Grace C., 14, of River Dell High School, noticed that, as a lesbian, she’d rather read about news affecting the LGBTQ community on social media because she can connect with others:

When I learned about the Pulse Nightclub shooting or Roy Moore’s beliefs from traditional news, I felt vulnerable. When seeing the same stories on social media, I don’t feel alone.

10. Understanding the news can help you relate to family members across generations.



We end on a heartwarming note. Roughly a quarter of students who participated mentioned that it was nice to be able to take an active part in current-events conversations with their parents. Tyler McCarthy, 15, of the Hoggard High School, put it this way: “I also created an even better bond with my mom. There is nothing like fighting about who is right and who is wrong to strengthen a relationship.”



Andrew Caslin, 14, of River Dell High School, wrote about going to an all-day family gathering and having a new experience.

I sat with my Uncle John, the whole time. Usually I talk to him for a minute about politics and I’m bored out of my mind, but this time I felt something different. This conversation that, at one time, would put me to sleep, was appealing to me now. I knew this was a product of the news diet. I talked with Uncle John about things I didn’t know about. One of which as was his career as a NYPD Police Officer. I connected with his stories now after listening to countless stories about his experiences. One such story caught my attention. It was 1974 and my uncle was working with the 7th Precinct. He was on a burglary call and he found the suspect going out the fire escape. He chased him across the roof, and while running it gave way and he fell off the building. He told me how he was feeling as he felt the roof give out from under his feet and how he felt while falling to the ground. It gave me a more in depth look at how an officer thinks and a different perspective to all the news stories concerning police officers, and a chance to see how they feel in a situation that the media makes them out to be the bad guys.

Now, we invite you to read the essays of our seven top winners.

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Essay Winners

Katie Golden, 14, River Dell Regional High School:

Shocking stories change us. Almost six years ago, my grandpa first introduced me to the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II. Drafted at the age of 17, a warrior in the famous Battle of the Bulge where he suffered frost bite in his toes to this day from interminable days without shoes, he was one of the last American soldiers to be stationed in Germany when war concluded. Why did he tell me these gruesome stories I knew hewished to forget? So that I wouldn’t forget. So that it would never happen again. I’m sure my grandfather wanted me to be informed about the world … and I thought I was. I knew all about the teen world: Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber’s on-and-off romance, what fashion was especially trending in November, and what color dress matches my personality (thank you, People magazine!) I even read the sports section of the Daily News, and usually directed the basketball conversations in my friend group. The deficiencies in my media diet became clear when I was at a Global Connections Club meeting. We were discussing ways to help the Rohingya Refugees, a group of people being targeted for “ethnic cleansing.” The presenter said they were the “least wanted group in the world.” She shared news stories about villages being burned and women being raped. I was shocked when the presenter compared the events in Myanmar to the Holocaust. Their situation sure sounded like the people my grandfather once told me about. Hadn’t we all sworn it would never happen again? At this moment, I experienced a new revelation about myself: my eyes were on all the wrong stories. Terror was continuing to dominate our world, even in today’s world. As part of the New York Times Media Challenge, I needed to alter my media intake, and as a result of my club meeting, I decided to look for news about the forgotten people of the world: poor people affected by new tax laws, immigrants facing deportation, women silenced by sexual harassment, and Beijing workers forced out of their homes. Like my grandpa, these reporters were exposing atrocities. They were telling stories of human suffering that they would probably like to forget too. News is the microphone for the forgotten, powerless voices of the world. The media is the shield in the current war our world wages on Human Rights. It speaks for victims of persecution, harassment, deportation, and ethnic cleansing. We can’t limit ourselves to the fun news, but consider the heavy and sometimes gruesome stories the news may cover. The news exists simplistically to help and investigate when anyone is suffering. If we don’t acknowledge the media, these barbarities will happen, again, and again, and again.

Helen, 14, River Dell Regional High School:

The day had just started and I was sitting in a classroom with two uneven pigtails, one untied lace, half of my best friend necklace, and zero English skills. Already, I felt lost. Having just moved from Germany, I was attempting to participate in a geography game. As my classmates kept putting up correct answers, I didn’t have even one. Unless I could master the new language, I would have no power. I had a flashback to those times six years ago when my teacher asked me to participate in the New York Time Media Challenge. My writing class was talking about the news, and a wave of opinions drowned me. Like my former self, I was lost again. It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention to the news, but none of it was about the government. I read about Leonardo da Vinci’s $400 million dollar painting and Europe’s first underwater restaurant, but I didn’t know how the tax bill was going to affect my family or how the Russian investigation tainted our election. I realized I had no idea what was going on in politics. It appeared I had a new language to master. Because I am a busy high school student, I didn’t have much extra time, so I decided I would watch ABC Nightly News and hope for some better results. I began following the Congressional tax bill, Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, and even the Alabama senate race. I began to form so many different opinions. Politics is a topic no family wants to talk about over Thanksgiving dinner, but after this experiment, I had couldn’t wait to share my thoughts. (Surprisingly, I still have relatives talking to me.) There are many people who don’t understand what’s happening in politics and rather than reading the news they decide to tune it out. Not paying attention to the news isn’t going to make you understand it. The more you immerse yourself in the news, like a language, the more you will understand it. For those out there who believe that following the tax bill is too complicated, they are becoming submissive. They are willing to sit back and accept whatever the government is handing them. If you engage yourself in the media and follow that tax bill, you can write letters, fight for what you believe, and possibly change the direction of laws. Rather than believing the government will do the right thing, you will know, and can hold them accountable. Knowledge is power.

Isabella Jimenez, 17, Canterbury School:

It’s overwhelming, really. My phone chimes at least 100 times a day, my push notifications filled with news headlines. Facts, opinions, controversies, and current events are constantly hurled at me a million miles an hour, and in the of age of technology, it’s impossible to hide. It all becomes white noise, and it is hard to differentiate what is fact from fiction. Although I routinely read the news and stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the world, I sometimes feel trapped. The news, despite its ability to empower, inspire, and educate many, has also acted as the carrier of anger, burden, and tragedy. My father had just picked up my sister and I from school. The second he turned on the car, he immediately shut off the radio, afraid of what my sister and I might overhear. I wasn’t naïve: my whole school had been in lockdown for the last five hours. I asked my dad what was wrong and he answered with silence, leaving me with an empty feeling in my stomach. On our way home, we stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts/Dunkin’ Donuts, because even at 13 years old, I already was a coffee dependent life-form. I remember walking in, hand and hand with my younger sister, and seeing “Breaking News: Mass Shooting in Newtown Connecticut at local elementary school. ” flashing in big red letters on the screen and people on the floor helplessly crying. That whole afternoon, my eyes were glued to the TV as the number began to rise, finally stopping at 26. For the next couple of weeks, I wouldn’t be able to go to school, turn on the TV, or even leave my house to go have breakfast at the local diner as information hungry news reporters infiltrated my town. I was trapped. Everywhere I went, the news followed. Living in Connecticut, the news is my means to escape to the world beyond my small high school and rural hometown. It has brought me face to face with President Trump, climate change, the refugee crisis, and with the victims of other mass shootings. Before experimenting with my news diet, I regularly pressured myself to read the news, reminding myself the importance of a globalized perspective and having this information as “social currency.” I never took into consideration the toll it would all have on me and never realized the power I had to chose the news I wanted to consume. Participating in the news audit and reading almost every article that popped up into my notification feed and watching the TV, left me tired and frustrated. It made me feel as I did in the following weeks after the Sandy Hook tragedy: trapped. I realized through this project the importance of having a balanced news diet: an ideal combination of all perspectives from all news realms. Butmost of all, I recognized that sometimes, you need to take a step back in order to process, reflect, and breathe.

Matthew Kaufman, 15, River Dell Regional High School:

While a teen sits and plays Call of Duty, a North Korean missile sails toward our country. The teen is oblivious as he strives to reach level 3 on the game. This seems like a scene out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In thatnovel, citizens watch their full wall TVs, unaware of the warplanes flying above them. Participating in the New York Times Media Challenge, I found that I might be the teen described above and could star in a modern-day version of this book. Step one of this experiment required completing a review of my news diet. After monitoring my main sources of news, I discovered a blatant flaw in my news intake: I only read the headlines. Not only was it just the headlines, but I would only look at the five recommended articles that were displayed as widgets on my phone. If I found an article that was interesting, I might read some of it, or tell someone else about it. But if they asked me a question about a specific detail, I would answer, “I don’t know; I only read the headline.” Embarrassed by my lack of depth, I challenged myself to dive into entire articles, as opposed to the five ones displayed in a preview. What I got from this experience was a deeper understanding of the content. I took away more information than I would have from just reading the headlines, and I felt more content with myself after this experience. One article that stood out to me was from BuzzFeed. The headline stated that immigration officers continued to arrest illegal immigrants in Florida during Irma, even though they promised not to. The headline made the officers seem like villains, but when I read the whole article I saw both sides of the accusation. Headlines can show one-sided arguments, while reading the article in detail gives you all the information needed to comprehend a topic. Ray Bradbury warned us back in 1953 about what our society was becoming. Captain Beatty is one of the men in charge of keeping books out of peoples’ hands. He describes why the world came to be the way that it is, and we are quickly becoming that society. Beatty says that all people want are, “snap endings.” I think this describes our world today perfectly. People don’t read the whole book; they skip to the last page. They don’t want to take the time to digest what they’ve been given. I realized this after my experiment. I am becoming what Bradbury feared. We all are. It’s time for our society to get out of the express lane.

Wynn Maloney, 18, Canterbury School:

Unconsciously, as it must be for many other eighteen year olds, my news diet was bland, lazy, and lacking effort. The only time I would ever discover news would be when I was tapping through my snap stories on Snapchat until I reached the discover section of the screen, or scrolling through my Instagram feed when I would come across a Barstool sports post. Occasionally, I would click on an alert from the news app on my iPhone when I was trying to clear my notifications, but I would find myself lost in the article I had just entered. I was absent and blind to what was going on around me in the world, I admit it. Once I realized the isolation I had put myself through that had prevented me from not only becoming an educated citizen of society, but also becoming aware of my surroundings, I decided it was time to change up my news diet. My first step was to turn on my brain and open my eyes in order to become more aware whenever I would come across a piece of news so I didn’t just scroll or tap away to something more interesting to my tastes. Slowly, I noticed myself wanting to read the whole article or post whenever I would come across news, no matter the topic. Then, my second step was to turn on all my notifications in my news app in order to spark more news action in my day to day life. Once the news started to come to me, I would click on every notification and read up on the article. If I found myself lost, I would simply search the background of the topic through other news sources. The chase through my news app to catch the next update on particular stories I was following had become like gambling at a casino, every time I won, or found an amazing or interesting news piece, I was left hungry for more. Ever since I have implemented these two simple steps into my life I have found that I feel like I can contribute to society through participating in intriguing conversations pertaining to up-to-date news. I also feel as if I am able to make personal connections to many day to day issues through the feelings that arise within me once I read many articles that address national and even international issues. I was once an 18-year-old girl who unhealthily and lazily consumed my news, but now I am still that eighteen year old girl who now looks forward to educating myself and consuming every ounce of knowledge I can obtain through news, and for that I am grateful for my news diet project.

Olivia McCormack, 14, The Franklin School Of Innovation:

This project was an eye-opener, revealing several things including the substantial amount of news I got daily. The latter part of the project inspired me to learn what I could about our current world. I started with a 24 hour period where I recorded all the news taken in. I found the news I got was mainly background noise with no focused time, and with news taken in all at once, so for my news diet mix up, I chose to change this. My planwas to do two things: listen to NPR news podcasts and read CNN articles on my phone. The first week I quickly found that the mornings were not the time for focused news, so I changed my intake time to in the car or ondeck before swim practice. During this experience, I found myself inspired and powerless with many issues. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing about all the sexual harassment allegations and denials. People denying these brave women who are speaking out while knowing they will be pushed around. For a month I listen to coverage of people giving brave testimonies, while men in power were denying and bashing on these women. I was left heartbroken and questioning; what kind of world is this where there is no equality? I don’t mean just in this matter, I see it everywhere, people not making something as simple as a cake for the lone reason the clients were gay, it’s just so unconstitutional. I found that another time I had to stop listening to the news was during coverage of the terrorist attack in Egypt. I just couldn’t bear to hear any more about the horrific things people do to each other. Still, there were times the news I heard excited me, these were times where things like advancements in Muller’s investigation where people were finally paying for their crimes, or when the transgender woman was elected in Virginia an example of how we are coming closer to true equality. This project left me knowing that the news is a very valuable part of life in this country. I also realized that without the news, I would be as innocent as a kindergartner, so I the news is needed in order to be a valuable member of society. Throughout my experience in the new diet mix up, I know that if I ever want to be a valuable member of society I will need to be as informed as I can be. I hope to do so by finding the right news diet and to be able to find places where I can speak up and stand out. One needs a healthy amount of news in life to a point that you are informed but not overwhelmed. Overall, I learned that there are multiple issues that we as a society need to fix and that our news intake should be enough that we are informed, but not to the point that we‘re overwhelmed.

Jocelyn Savard, 16, Hoggard High School:

Each day, I attend a swim practice for about three hours. As soon as it ends, us, being teenagers go straight to our phones. My friends phones are filled with text messages, Snapchats, and missed calls. Of course, mine has all those things too but thrown in are news article headlines. If I have time, I will immediately read the articles. If I don’t have time then, I make sure I get to them relatively soon. Many people in my community are not receiving any sources of news. Physical deliver-to-your-doorstep newspapers are rare in households now because of the internet. But how many of the people not receiving newspapers read them online daily? If the generation above us is not informed, how can we be expected to be? Most teenagers’s only source of news are the gossip articles at the grocery store checkout lines. What sort of condition will our country be in twenty years when it’s run by a generation who only knows about their individual lives performed until that point? Possibly more concerning than the lack of knowledge is the lack of consistency. I read everything from the über conservative Washington Times to the extremely liberal New York Times. Each article the story changes; in one I’m reading about the bill President Trump passed that will save the country’s economy by saving x amount of money each year. Then, I go to the next article on my list and I’m reading about the bill President Trump passed that is dooming the country’s economy by losing x amount of money each year. As I’m more left leaning, I tend to believe the more liberal sources which would be great except I have right leaning friends who believe the conservative sources. We are truly a divided country. If I weren’t reading a wide range of news sources would I realize the biases? And despite reading several news sources, some such as USA Today (notoriously neutral), often times I don’t know what the full truth is. Again, how can we be expected to lead a country where we only know a biased history of it, if any? During my audit, possibly the only new thing I realized was how negative all the news intake I was receiving constantly was. I read about poisonous cities, Trump’s mistakes, and falling stocks. I didn’t have articles on people beating cancer, communities coming together or good political choices. It seems that news has always been this way but it can still be linked to the lack of consumption of news from everyone of all ages in our country. Someday, I hope to leave swim practice with articles written by opposite political affiliations having consistent facts and possibly one story that would make anyone smile. I have hope that we can change the way we perceive the news, possibly by changing the news first, so that my generation will be able to grow to our full potential and lead well in coming years.

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Runners-Up

Shreya Aggarwal, 14, River Dell Regional High School

Alexis, 14, River Dell Regional High School

Christopher Burmaster, 15, River Dell Regional High School

Melissa Canales, 17, TERRA Environmental Research Institute