Kids make Elliot Avenue Gazette front page news

Kids start community newspaper

This neighborhood along Elliot Avenue in South Minneapolis is filled with children. For some of them, bringing the basics of the 4th estate to their block is child's play.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - This neighborhood along Elliot Avenue in south Minneapolis is filled with children. For some of them, bringing the basics of the fourth estate to their block is child's play.

Anika Freeman is the de facto editor-in-chief of the neighborhood newspaper the children put out once a week named the Elliot Avenue Gazette.

The seventh-grader says that after watching the movie "Newsies" last year, they thought it would be fun to deliver newspapers, so they decided to create their own.

"I really like just learning about all these cool things that kids have done and that are happening around the world and this is just a good excuse to learn about it," said Freeman.

The Elliot Avenue Gazette covers everything from presidential politics to family vacations gone wrong, with all the articles penned by the neighborhood kids themselves.

Hazel Fitch writes a column called "Storytime With Hazel" about one of her dad's misadventures in college.

"He was with his friends, and they decided to take this golf cart and drive it around the campus, and they got caught. So that was fun to write about," said Fitch.

So far, they've published about seven editions, which they deliver to about 20 of their friends and neighbors on Sundays.

"I've heard from so many people 'This is the highlight of my week. We love the gazette'. My neighbor across the alley said her second-grader does the crossword every week, and she loves it," said Anika's mother, Alicia Freeman.

In addition to hyper-local news, weather, and sports, Freeman says there's a healthy dose of good news in every issue.

"I feel like so many bad things are happening in the world, and that's usually like the headliners, and everybody wants to know about that, but there are good things that happen as well," said Anika Freeman.

And they have no plans to stop the presses anytime soon.

"For now, we are still really interested in it. So I think we are going to keep doing it," she explained.

While most of the newspapers have been in physical form, the kids have put out a couple of electronic editions as well, so people far beyond Elliot Avenue can keep up with all the news that's fit to print.