This was the mission of a 12-week project with local high school and college students in Northern Tasmania.

The result was a brilliant 28-page special feature that you find in today’s paper or online at our website.

Coordinating the work of nine students, as well as an advisory group of about 12 students, was not an easy task. 

The students came from varied backgrounds, different schools, differing opinions, terribly busy schedules and most were working towards a deadline that conflicted with the end of year exams.

The Examiner held workshops and worked with students individually to ensure the work they produced was the best it could be and offered a challenge.

This was led by The Examiner’s senior journalist Johanna Baker-Dowdell and marketing advisor Kate Greaves.

What’s important to note is that we didn’t tell the students what to write.

Instead, we focused on developing ideas, suggested interview subjects via the contacts from our newsroom, passed on writing techniques and had students thinking about the audience first when writing their stories.

The authors of Momentum do not all want to be journalists when they grow up. This isn’t why we encourage schools to be involved.

There are many benefits of being involved in this process of producing your own newspaper – confidence, creativity, time management, teamwork and problem solving are all skills the students have developed during their time working on Momentum.

The end result was a newspaper that covered everything from art to culture to technology to history to mental health.

The Examiner publishes Momentum every year because we believe in offering a voice to everyone. 

We do this with our coverage every day, yet Momentum gives us a chance to listen along with the community.

The voices in this newspaper are facing important issues and they will inherit future issues from generations before them. They deserve to be heard.