PEER
PRESS
Peer Press is our youth news agency where young people are at the helm of reporting local news.
'Lazy", "lacking respect”, “lacking direction”, “anti-social” and “apathetic” are the most common terms used to describe young people in the British Press.
They couldn't be more wrong for the young people that we know, meet and work with. So, we're flipping the script! Creating our own youth news agency, Peer Press.
We're addressing the balance of power by training up young people as Citizen Journalists, guiding them in how to amplify their voices and share their experiences. Empowering them to counter the dominant narrative surrounding them and their peers with positive news and investigations.
Source: Shout Out UK, Youth Media Agency
MERTON PILOT
We're starting our mission to 'change the news' in our hometown of Merton where we have piloted Peer Press with local young residents.
Over the course of the school summer holidays, we travelled across the borough delivering a collection of free, bespoke Citizen Journalism programmes to over 100 young people. Each cohort learnt various different journalistic skills - including film, photography, podcasting and writing articles - and were facilitated to create content or campaigns on the issues that matter to them most. They also took 'press trips' to local landmarks, to put their newly acquired skills to use.
Peer Press is the first project of its kind in the borough, upskilling young people in multimedia skills and putting them at the forefront of the conversations about them. The youth news agency will continue to create multimedia content, which will shared through a digital magazine (launching soon). Graduate Citizen Journalists will also have the opportunity to take up paid work and commissions with us, through our participatory media work.
Our Peer Press pilot was supported by the Wimbledon Foundation, London Borough of Merton and MOPAC
