Young journalist shares experience covering tumultuous summer in Minneapolis
(FOX 9) - Last week, nine young journalists participated in the ThreeSixty Journalism's inaugural Digital Media Arts Camp where they remotely worked on photo essays, audio stories, illustrations, social media, and interactive digital stories.
ThreeSixty Journalism, a nonprofit program at the University of St. Thomas helps diverse high school journalists amplify their voices and prepare them for a future in journalism. The weeklong camp was held in partnership with the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, which connected students with sources relating to the topic health equity: racism as a public health issue.
One of the camp participants, Aaliyah Demry, shared her experiences as a young journalist with Fox 9's Hannah Flood Sunday morning.
Young journalist gains experience in the field during the unrest earlier this summer
Students part of the ThreeSixty Journalism program completed a week long, online camp to learn about journalism and build relationships with mentors. The goal of the program is to get young, diverse students interested in careers in journalism. Aaliyah Demry is one of those students.
The camp was completely online, as students worked from home and connected with their mentors virtually. Demry said she was worried going into it, but she was able to do a lot of it herself.
"It really let me know that journalism is something that I want to pursue," Demry said.
Demry talked about her experience going to the protests that sparked after the death of George Floyd with her dad and shooting her own footage for the story.
"A lot went through my mind going through all of that, especially with my dad." Demry said. "It felt really good to be a part of history, especially at a time like this."
She said she was surprised by the amount of people that wanted their voices to be heard while she was on the ground.
Her story highlights how young people around the Twin Cities responded after the death of George Floyd. She spoke with Minneapolis civil rights and racial justice leader, Abdul Omari, about how the protests physically and mentally impacts youth, especially during a pandemic.
"We, as a community, need to continue to think about how we are more accepting of some of the mental health impacts that we have," Omari said in the story. "We're in the middle of a global pandemic that physically is impacting Black and Brown people at significantly higher numbers than white people."
Demry is a recent graduate of Irondale High School. She will be attending Minneapolis College this fall. Demry recently launched her own storytelling platform on Instagram, The Fly Subject.
FOX 9 previously partnered with ThreeSixty Journalism through its TV Broadcast Camp. Last summer during the camp, anchor Bisi Onile-Ere and photographer Melissa Martz worked with ThreeSixty Journalism student Safiya Mohamed on a story about Twin Cities Native Lacrosse. View that story and others produced in the camp here.
Fox 9 will be sharing additional stories created by young journalists from the ThreeSixty Journalism Digital Media Arts Camp. Stay tuned at fox9.com.