The Grand River Sachem is one of Canada's oldest newspapers, having been in existence since 1856. The Sachem has operated out of the same office since 1865, making it Canada's longest-operating-in-the-same-building newspaper!
Senior Reporter Tamara Botting talked to the girls about the newspaper and the jobs involved in producing a weekly paper (reporter, editor, publisher). They learned that a reporter's day can change suddenly with the need to cover breaking news stories and how sometimes stories have to be held over until a future issue in order to make space for more time-sensitive stories. We also discussed censorship, libel, and editorials vs. news stories.The girls were shown how a page layout is put together and a mock-up of the front page was done with a photo of the group. They also learned how a story is uploaded on to the website.
We then split the girls up into their Patrols and had each one write their own news story about anything they wished. When they read out their stories, the other girls had to identify the five W's - who, what, when, where, and why. As we had some time left, we had each Patrol make up their own "breaking news" report and act it out for the rest of us.
