Meeting Young Journalists Where They Are

Local media project works with Gen Z to produce short-form videos

From staff reports

Editors of the Glen Arbor Sun and The Betsie Current announce a joint project to begin working with aspiring young journalists and influencers during the summer and fall of 2026.

“Meeting Young Journalists Where They Are” is an innovative way to collaborate with high school- and college-aged Northern Michiganders, who will be paid to produce compelling and topical local news in their rural communities through online video platforms.

Currently, editors are looking for interested young people in Leelanau and Benzie counties to join this project, which is funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan, hosted by the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation.

“In journalism, we often talk about rural ‘news deserts’ and how people living in communities without adequate access to local reporting and storytelling become less engaged in civic life and less trusting of institutions—from government, to schools, to hospitals,” says Jacob Wheeler, Sun editor. “We worry that teenagers and young adults are also turning away from news and civic engagement. That’s why we’re trying to ‘meet young journalists where they are’ and appeal to their sense of storytelling, through mediums that speak to their generation.”

About The Project

Teenagers and young adults in “Gen Z” (ages 14-29) are “underserved” by traditional media sources, such as newspapers, radio, and television. Many don’t trust “legacy” news, which adversely impacts their civic engagement and their investment in politics, education, and local institutions.

Instead, young adults get the bulk of their news, information, and entertainment from video-based social media platforms—primarily Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Young users prioritize authenticity and relatability, preferring quick, visual, and short-form video content over the polish of conventional news outlets.

The project pairs two local editors/journalists—Jacob Wheeler (48) of the Glen Arbor Sun in Leelanau County and Aubrey Ann Parker (40) of The Betsie Current in Benzie County—with young reporters who will develop short-form, video-based stories about topics relevant to Northern Michigan youth.

This could range from their favorite beach or business to their summer job, from a fun local event to critical issues that disproportionately affect young people, like affordable housing to the high cost of education. The video ideas will be led by these young reporters—what interests them and what will interest their peers, who will view these videos—with guidance from Wheeler and Parker on themes, tone, and content.

There will be monthly meetings with student groups—initially in person, later virtual—to discuss story ideas, web platforms, reporting process, and deadlines.

The young journalists’ video stories will ultimately be published on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube—Sun, Current, and individuals’ personal profiles—and could potentially air in local community theaters, such as The Garden in Frankfort. These video-based stories could also be adapted for print.

This project will expand local news content to our publications’ current audience—and it will also increase access by reaching a new, underserved audience of young people.

The Sun currently publishes 17 print editions each calendar year, and the Current does 16; websites for each reach tens of thousands every month, as do our Facebook and Instagram accounts. This project will increase our publications’ online/social media presence, and it will do so using a different demographic than our content typically targets.

For the sustainability of our industry, it is important that we meet these emerging journalists early in their career-exploration journey. Not only will this project benefit students’ resumes and college/scholarship applications, but paying them to produce these videos proves to these young people that they could potentially pursue careers such as journalism, content creation, documentary filmmaking, social media management, and other emerging fields.

Both Wheeler and Parker have extensive experience working with this age group. Wheeler has worked as the faculty advisor for the White Pine Press, Northwestern Michigan College’s student-run newspaper, since 2014. Parker has many years of experience in coaching local sports and mentoring youth.

“We’re both really looking forward to working with these young people on the issues that they find interesting,” Parker says. “I’m sure they will come up with things that neither of us—solidly a Gen Xer and a Millenial—have thought of or trends that we haven’t seen going around on social media. I really like the idea of learning from these young people just as much as they’ll be learning from us; a true exchange of ideas, which is a foundational element of what democracy and the free press are all about.”

Press Forward Grant

Press Forward is a nationwide network to strengthen local news, so that communities can stay informed, connected, and engaged.

With backing from the MacArthur Foundation, Press Forward is a major philanthropic coalition investing more than $500 million to revitalize local journalism in the United States. Launched in 2023 by a network of more than 130 donors, it aims to strengthen communities and democracy by supporting independent, community-focused newsrooms across the country.

Press Forward was created in response to the collapse of local news ecosystems and focuses on four main goals:

• Bolstering Newsrooms: Providing grants and financial support to sustain local media outlets, regardless of their format or profit status.
• Building Sustainability: Helping local journalism organizations to develop long-term, viable business models.
• Increasing Diversity: Addressing longstanding inequities by funding newsrooms that are led by and serve people of color.
• Expanding Public Policy: Elevating local news as a public good and advocating for policies that support community information needs.

Press Forward operates through three primary investment strategies:

• Pooled Funds: Financial contributions are combined and distributed as national grants through The Miami Foundation.
• Aligned Grantmaking: Participating donors make independent grants directly to news initiatives of their choice.
• Local Chapters: A network of dozens of place-based affiliates across the country that coordinate investments to meet the specific needs of their own region.

In that vein, Press Forward Northern Michigan (PFNM) is the local chapter, working collaboratively to support availability and access to local news information across the northern region of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

The work of PFNM builds upon a Northern Michigan News Ecosystem survey, completed in 2023, that illuminated a loss in editorial and reporting positions across more than 20 Northern Michigan counties and the growth of news deserts across our largely rural region.

During the spring of 2024, PFNM hosted a committee of local leaders—including Wheeler and Parker—with a commitment to the advancement of local news in Northern Michigan’s rural communities.

Since that time, PFNM has been working to reinvigorate and reimagine local news by sparking innovation, strengthening news and information providers and operations, and rebuilding trust in local news by catalyzing new ideas, supporting local newsrooms, and listening deeply to the needs of both journalists and the communities they serve.

Additional research—with support from the University of Michigan’s Ginsberg Center—has deepened the understanding of community members’ access to local news.

PFNM works to advance four strategic pillars:

• News Operations: Support innovative ideas to expand local news content, especially in underserved, rural communities.
• Research: Understand regional news ecosystems and their consumers to provide information and insights that will inform future strategies.
• Education: Provide opportunities for education and connection in the field, including for emerging journalists.
• Awareness Building: Build awareness among various and diverse audiences—and support for—the value of robust local news and information as part of community vitality.

Additionally, the PFNM has created the Northern Michigan Journalism Project, a reporting project—led by Bridge Michigan and Interlochen Public Radio (IPR)—made up of news outlets across the region that are working to build local capacity for collaborative journalism.

Over the past year or so, both the Sun and Current have benefited from additional reporting that has been made available by the Northern Michigan Journalist Project.

In other words, an article could have been  written by a journalist in another press room and published in a different publication, such as the Traverse City Record-Eagle or the Cadillac Daily News, but it may have information that is still relevant to our readers in Leelanau and/or Benzie counties, so these articles are cross-published in our pages, at no additional cost to us—the writer is paid by the Northern Michigan Journalism Project, and potentially their home newsroom, as well. An added benefit is that these stories have already been edited, so they take minimal work to plug into our pages.

Now, both the Sun and Current are also benefiting from a grant for their upcoming project to work with community youth to create video content in 2026, part of a larger total of $50,000 that was awarded to six local newsrooms, with more than one-quarter—$14,300—being awarded to Leelanau and Benzie counties. (See sidebar for breakdown.)

Do you know a young person between the ages of 15 and 23 in Leelanau or Benzie county who would be interested in participating in this innovative project? Would you like more information sent to you about this project? Fill out the form at https://bit.ly/YouthJournalists online. A grant from Press Forward Northern Michigan will pay young journalists per video.

Funding Announcement

Press Forward Northern Michigan (PFNM) recently announced small investments in news operations that make a meaningful difference in the ability of news outlets to do their work.

A total of $50,000 was awarded to six local newsrooms with a goal of supporting news operations across rural communities that spark innovation, build trust, and expand access to local news and information.

• Boyne Citizen: $8,800 to expand coverage and engagement in Boyne Falls, Walloon Lake, Charlevoix County, and surrounding townships.
• Elk Rapids News: $10,000 to expand coverage through a summer intern and expand distribution to the Williamsburg area.
• Glen Arbor Sun/The Betsie Current: $6,300 to collaborate with high school- and college-aged students in Leelanau and Benzie counties to produce compelling and topical local news in their rural communities through social media and new journalism mediums that their peers access and trust.
• Sable Points Media: $10,000 to support governmental and educational news coverage in Mason and Oceana counties.
• WUWU Community Radio: $8,000 to support a pilot project designed to build durable rural media infrastructure, democratize journalistic skills, and expand access to local civic information in Benzie County.
• WCMU Public Media: $6,900 to support expanding multimedia storytelling skills and coverage through the purchase of needed equipment.