Meet the adult staff — Donna C. Myrow

It’s strange to think that people all over the world now have access, through this L.A. Youth website, to the work of the teens who gather in our offices after school. We have really come a long way!

I still remember when I started L.A. Youth—and we didn’t even have a computer! The pivotal moment was 9 a.m. on January 13, 1988, when the United States Supreme Court struck down student press rights, giving school officials broad powers to censor student newspapers. At 3:30 that afternoon, 15 teens gathered around my kitchen table to discuss the idea of publishing an independent, citywide teen-written newspaper in Los Angeles.

The creation of L.A. Youth on that January day was a logical outcome. We began with two issues a year, 2,500 each time. The response from teens, teachers and parents exceeded our wildest expectations. Copies were snapped up faster than we could print them. Letters poured in from readers which told how reading L.A. Youth had helped them solve personal problems and opened their eyes to new ideas. We believe that the publication of a teen newspaper is a particularly effective way to transmit basic literacy and job-related skills while empowering young people with the tools to meet and challenge the adult world. Today we publish every two months during the school year, distributing 70,000 copies free to a readership of more than 350,000.

Our newspaper can be found in public and private schools alike, nearly 400 community-based youth programs and many libraries. It is also sent to students in China, France and Africa. Individual articles are published on our website and reprinted in the Los Angeles Times and other publications.

L.A. Youth has a dual mission: to train students in critical thinking, writing skills and literacy, and to provide peer-written information for a young audience that has little faith in the mass media’s ability to reflect its concerns.

For us, the most important news is information which will help our readers gain a better understanding of the society they live in, the forces that act on them and how they can gain more control over their lives. We present that information in news stories, but also in self-help articles, personal accounts, speakouts and many other formats. Because this material is written in an authentic teen voice, L.A. Youth has a credibility with its readers that other media cannot match.

L.A. Youth is designed to be the sober, informed friend that parents wish their children had. L.A. Youth is the work of writers, photographers and illustrators—the storytellers of adolescence.