Project Youth is a new media literacy club held in room E212 on Thursdays during B-block. During the club, members talk about different social issues, including politics, both in the United States and other countries. By doing this, they gain opportunities to see other perspectives from various news channels while analyzing the information as a group, not as an individual.

“It’s not about you, but it’s also about others,” club president senior Cecilia Hwang said. “Obviously your voice matters, your opinion matters, but you have to say [your thoughts] right in order to deliver [them] clearly. If someone says something incorrect, you have to be able to [correct] the person.”

By focusing on how the news is reported in the media, students become more informed when they read the news on their own and help their peers understand as well.

“When you go off to college, you can form your own opinions,” club sponsor and government teacher Cortney Haynes said. “You’ll have those skills to use because you’ll need them when you’re analyzing sources. When you’re talking in class and when a professor wants you to write a paper, you need to know what you’re talking about.”

Hwang pulls information from both liberal and conservative sources so the students can talk about why the story was published. The students will be able to have a better understanding of what makes news liberal or conservative and who the intended audiences are.

“I don’t really read the newspaper, read articles [or] anything like that, so I felt like [Project Youth] will help me get to know what’s going around in the world,” senior Tanushree Mamidi said. “I’m not really into politics or anything. I’m too busy with school to care. [The club] helped me. It’s a chance that somebody else can tell me what’s going on and what to take from it.”

With all the information and analyzing they do during the club, students who join will be able to have a better understanding of how the world works. The students involved will have in-depth conversations about why people in the media think the way they do and work to form their own opinions.

“I hope that by the end of the year, people will know how to have their own point of view instead of relying on biased media and other people’s opinions,” Hwang said.