New Tattoo issues online now!

We have a new issue online at www.ReadTheTattoo.com that I know you'll want to check out soon.

Two of Youth Journalism International's teen journalists in India, Hashra Mishra and Janina Ramachandran, detail the terror of watching Mumba, the city of dreams, locked in battle with terrorists for three days last week.

Back in the U.S., three teen writers - Brice Birdsall in Oregon and two Connecticut reporters, Leah Igdalsky and Kiernan Majerus-Collins -- weighed in on Black Friday in the wake of the trampling death of a Wal-Mart worker in New York.

Speaking of New York, don't miss a brother and sister take on the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan. Kathryn and Matt Middleton, who live in Pennsylvania,tell what it's like to see the famous parade up close and personal instead of on television.

Birdsall also has a review of Twilight, the hit new vampire movie.

I failed to send out a notice about our last issue -- sorry for that oversight! -- but let's catch up now.

Genoa, Italy's Eugenia Durante wrote about a student protest against planned education cuts by the government while Mishra had a piece about Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Australia's Rebecca Baylis wrote her take on the election of Barack Obama, whose acceptance speech moved her to tears. And Connecticut's Justin Skaradosky had another of his great cartoons, too.

We're working on an election reaction package featuring the thoughts of more than two dozen young people in eight countries on five continents. It's an ambitious effort for Youth Journalism International, but we're getting there. You wouldn't believe how much material there is to try to organize coherently. When it's done soon, you'll appreciate the work that went into it.

As always, we're grateful for your support and any help that you can offer. We're eager for constructive criticism, tips, advice and any talented teens you may have in your life.

As the recent carnage in Mumbai makes clear once again, learning together about our world and the ties that bind us all, young and old, is an endeavor that's not merely nice, but perhaps the most important thing we can do. We're lucky to have so many wonderful young people in our broad Yoouth Journalism International family and so glad that their work is seen and appreciated by so many.

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Copyright 2008 by ReadTheTattoo.com. All rights reserved.

What do Johnny Pesky and Prudence Crandall have in common?

They're both featured in The Tattoo's new issue, online now.

Red Sox great Johnny Pesky, left, and Kiernan Majerus-Collins, in 2006. (youthjournalism.org photo)

Reporter Kiernan Majerus-Collins writes about the decision by the Boston Red Sox to retire the number 6, which legendary second baseman Johnny Pesky wore back in the day.

Gabi Smith-Rosario, sculptor Gabriel Koren and Mary Majerus-Collins at the Connecticut State Capitol last week. (youthjournalism.org photo)

Junior reporters Gabi Smith-Rosario and Mary Majerus-Collins, both of Connecticut, wrote a package of stories about a new statue placed in the State Capitol in Hartford -- the first in more than a century. It honors Prudence Crandall, a teacher in the 1830s who integrated her school for girls and got run out of town for it.

Australian junior reporter Alex Patrikios adds a tale of interning at a Melbourne newspaper and getting the chance to sit in media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's very own chair there. He wasn't in it at the time.

Finally, senior cartoonist Justin Skaradosky, also from Connecticut, weighs in with a cartoon about the war on terror.

It's a great issue. Go read it.

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Copyright 20086 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Two new issues of The Tattoo online now

We have published two more issues that are chock full of advice on how to survive high school. In our September 15th issue, you'll find two Justin Skaradosky cartoons making fun of motivational posters, a piece by Wisconsin teen Emily Mongan about Freshman Kill Day, an essay by South Africa's Mariechen Puchert urging teens to make friends to cope with high school, Tennessee teen Sarah Heath's warning not to make your life an after school television special and West Hartford, Connecticut teen Wesley Saxena's sage advice on the bridge into high school. "It Ain't Like In the Movies," warns Mariah Pulver of Arizona.
In our September 22nd issue, you can read about how teens in Kuwait scrape by during the hunger of Ramadan, thanks to Sana Ali's report. Also featured in the issue are New Jersey teen Shekinah-Glory Dhanie-Beepat's take on homeschooling, another Justin Skaradosky cartoon, Katie Grosser's piece from Germany about being the new foreign kid in school, Harsha Mishra's account from India about the horrors of acne, Georgia's Donicea Johnson's advice to freshmen to get involved and Zhu Qin Zhe's personal tale of making a choice in China.
Talk about spanning the globe!
We have dozens of new writers who are dripping with talent so, please, keep an eye on what they do in the weeks and months ahead.

September 22nd issue and September 15th issue.

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Copyright 2008 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

New Tattoo issue ranges from Myanmar to West Hartford

In our new issue at ReadTheTattoo.com, Youth Journalism International’s young writers have delivered a wide-ranging assortment of stories, pictures and cartoons.
Singapore teen Geraldine Soon wrote months ago about her journey to Myanmar long before this month’s cyclone ripped through a wide swath of that poverty-stricken but beautiful place. Check out her account – and luscious pictures – as well as her opinion piece on what’s happened there in recent days.
West Hartford writer Kiernan Majerus-Collins has a hard-hitting opinion piece calling for schools – and students – to stop using “gay,” “fag,” and “homo” as casual slurs. Don’t miss it.
There are also two new cartoons from the talented Bristol artist Justin Skaradosky, one on proms and one on school funding, and a solid news piece from Beth Pond about the effort to help Darfur one empty bowl at a time.
There’s also a review by Bristol’s Rachel Glogowski of the stage production of “The Bluest Eye” that you won’t want to miss.
Thanks for reading The Tattoo. Please don’t hesitate to let the young people in your life know about us. We’re always looking for talented teens anywhere in the world.
We’re also always eager for constructive advice, tips or even donations that will help The Tattoo continue to offer the best teen journalism in the world.

Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2008 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Halls of Shame adds two from New Jersey

It’s been awhile since we’ve inducted anyone into our Halls of Shame for tossing the First Amendment out the schoolhouse window.
But it’s time to turn up the heat again.
Publication of The Pioneer student newspaper at New Jersey’s Clearview Regional High School has been held up this week because school administrators don’t like an editorial cartoon that takes aim at anti-sex education activists, according to a story in the Gloucester County Times.
The cartoon shows a Teen Prevention Education Program volunteer “being burned at the stake by two Pure Pioneers, designated as such by their pioneer-style caps. The Pure Pioneers is a group of parents that has been vocally opposed” to the teen program that has older students educating younger ones, with teacher supervision, the paper reported this week.
“Once the administration caught wind of what we were doing, they brought in an attorney and now the issue is in prior review," senior Jordan Rubin told the paper. “This is the first time in The Pioneer's history that we've been in prior review and considered for censorship."
It’s unclear why school leaders got so freaked out about the cartoon since the district’s attorney wouldn’t talk, citing “attorney-client privilege,” the paper said. That the attorney obviously doesn’t comprehend that he works for the taxpayers, not some backward school superintendent doesn’t seem to matter. And the censors themselves? They had nothing to say.
There's nothing quite like censors who are so contemptuous of freedom that they don't even see a need to explain their thinking, such as it is.
So let’s honor Principal Kevin Kitchenman and Superintendent John Horchak with a spot in our Halls of Shame. They apparently would rather dishonor the Bill of Rights than tell some mouthy parents to back down and get out.
Instead of showing students what it means to live in a free country, they’re busy teaching their community that censorship is fine, that students have no right to an opinion and that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply in Harrison Township, New Jersey.
We hope that the student paper will go to print quickly when officials realize how badly they’ve screwed up.
And we trust that the student journalists who are trying to do what newspapers should will realize that they’re entirely in the right in this dispute. Don’t back down, kids.


Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2008 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Afghan soccer player

Those of you who read Katie's Jordan's pieces in 2004 might enjoy knowing what's happened to one of the girls who played on the Afghan team that Katie wrote about. The New York Times has a story, pictures and video online today.
What's particularly interesting for The Tattoo is that the girl that Katie talked to four years ago, who lived in Afghanistan, is now going to school in New Jersey with one of our Tattoo writers today, Kathryn Middleton. It's funny how things turn out.


Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2008 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

The Tattoo will be rocking!

At least a few Tattoo writers are planning to attend a human rights rock concert in West Hartford Saturday afternoon, to write about it and to talk with students there about The Tattoo.
Jackie Majerus and Steve Collins, who run The Tattoo, will also be on hand to tout both The Tattoo and Youth Journalism International, a soon-to-be nonprofit that will kick all of this up a notch.
So stop by and say hey! We'll be at Webster Hall at the town hall in West Hartford, Connecticut from noon to 7 p.m., listening to great music for a good cause and talking about this wonderful thing we do.

If you want to buy tickets ahead of time, here's the link.


Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

The Tattoo zooms to new heights in Spain

The American Embassy in Spain thought so highly of what its counterpart did in Poland to promote The Tattoo -- and who can blame them? -- that it just reprinted the wonderful writeup from the Polish issue of Zoom in on the USA for all of its readers in Spain. We're now on the front page of the October 2007 issue in Spain.
We're hoping that lots of American Information Centers around the world follow suit. Lord knows there's nothing better to be said about America than that it's home to ReadTheTattoo.com!


Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Pearl Harbor survivor talks with The Tattoo

Tattoo writer Beth Pond and Pearl Harbor survivor Everett Hyland, a former radioman 3rd class, who served on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania the morning of the attack. He was badly wounded in the Dec. 7, 1941 air strike by Japanese planes on the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

In a new issue online now, catch Beth Pond's piece on visiting Pearl Harbor and talking with two eyewitnesses to the attack in 1941. Pond also has a review of the new movie "A Mighty Heart."
In addition, don't miss newcomer Julia Reichard's cartoon about socialite Paris Hilton and Kiernan Majerus-Collins' photographs of a high school jazz band performing yesterday at the Iowa City Jazz Festival.










Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Thanks to The Tattoo from an El Salvador teen

Our hearts were truly touched the other day when Oscar Ramirez let us know that he mentioned us in the valedictorian address he gave to his school in San Salvador recently.
In his speech, Ramirez told his classmates, among much else, that he appreciated Jackie Majerus and Steve Collins, "editors of a newspaper based in Connecticut which published my articles during these years. They are not here today, but thank you for igniting my passion for journalism."
In his note to us, he said, "You , your family and your newspaper have truly been an inspiration to my life. I only wish you could have been at my graduation ceremony to say it to you in person. Strangely enough , I felt your presence. I guess a part of you and of The Tattoo became a part of me after joining. I'll never forget."
Really, his words put a lump in our throats.
Never did we imagine that a kid in El Salvador would be thanking us at a high school graduation ceremony there. It says more about The Tattoo and its far-reaching influence than it does about us, but it's still impossibly delightful that Ramirez honored us at that moment.
We're lucky to have had him as a writer and even more lucky that he became, across all these miles, a friend.

Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

The Tattoo's big in Poland today

The American Information Resource Centers at the U.S. consulate in Krakow publishes a monthly magazine, Zoom in on America, that aims to educate Poles about the United States and help them learn English. It's mostly targeted at teens, our favorite group of people, and it's pretty solid and professional.
But this month, Zoom in on America put out its best issue yet because it features ... us!
Check it out here (in PDF form).
The May issue is devoted to "Youth Journalism in the USA" and covers the subject well. It helps, of course, that the front page focuses entirely on The Tattoo, the biggest and best writeup we've ever gotten. (The Harvard Advocate, a literary magazine, is the only other publication featured in the issue. It's older than The Tattoo, and a tad more renowned, so we don't mind sharing the limelight with it.)
We're happy to get such a nice writeup. As an added bonus, perhaps we'll end up with some new writers from Poland soon.

Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

The Tattoo hangs with "Simpsons" writer Mike Reiss

L to R: Justin Skaradosky, Tattoo cartoonist; writer Mike Reiss; and Tattoo writer Beth Pond.

We here at Tattoo Central had a great chance last week spending some time with Mike Reiss, a Bristol, Conn. native who's been writing for "The Simpsons" since it went on the air nearly two decades ago. Reiss provided plenty of grist for fans of the show as well as giving solid tips for young people who might want to follow the path he took to success.
Be sure to check out www.ReadTheTattoo.com for stories by Beth Pond and Rachel Glogowski.
Also in this week's edition is an eye-opening essay by Australian teen Rebecca Baylis on the pressures of senior year and a review of Fall Out Boy's latest album by Alabama teen Mallory Mitchell.








Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Two issues from April online now

Catch up with The Tattoo!
This month, we've had two great issues.
On April 2, we published a piece from Trinidad teen Kate Agard about how she spent the wild days of Carnival on her island paradise, a review of "Freedom Writers" by Connecticut teen Beth Pond, a piece by Singapore teen Geraldine Soon about meeting up with one of The Tattoo's writers from India, a review of "I Spy" photographer Walter Wick's recent museum exhibit, and a new cartoon by Justin Skaradosky that our Bristol-based readers will especially appreciate.
This week, in addition to the pieces by teens in Blacksburg, Va., we have Kate Agard's cautionary tale about getting drunk, a news story by Beth Pond about Kurt Vonnegut's death, a news story by Sean Soltys about the new Everest Expedition rollercoaster at Disney's Orlando, Fla. amusement park and another wonderful cartoon by Justin Skaradosky.
We'll have more soon, so keep checking back!

Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Blacksburg teens react to Va. Tech shooting spree

Four students at Blacksburg High School, just down the road from the Virginia Tech campus, wrote pieces this week for The Tattoo detailing their horror at events the massacre in their hometown. Another student's piece will be added soon.
The teens, two sophomores and two seniors, help shed some light on how the tragedy hit home to young people for whom Virginia Tech is part of the landscape.
Another teen from their school, a senior, found he couldn't write anything. Two of his friends died at the hands of a crazed gunman.
Be sure to check out what these teens had to say at www.ReadTheTattoo.com.

Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Halls of Shame comes to Fort Wayne

Just when I thought America's school administrators were turning a new leaf, along came Edwin Yoder, principal of Woodlan Junior-Senior High School.
After 10th grader Megan Chase wrote a column calling on people not to look down on gays, Yoder came down on her.
According to Kelly Soderlund's account in The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Ind., Yoder read the piece and immediately issued an order to journalism teacher Amy Sorrell that he sign off on every future edition. Obviously, columns advocating tolerance have no place in HIS school's paper.
The staff of the Tomahawk, showing just the kind of gumption we love to see among high school journalists, sought out legal help to fight this jerk.
So Yoder issued a written warning against the teacher for “insubordination and not carrying out her responsibilities.”
He accused her of exposing his students “to inappropriate material” and warned her to comply or she could be fired, according to the newspaper’s account.
It must have been something heinous for Yoder to take such an extreme stand, right?
Well…. Here is the opinion column that put a teacher's job in jeopardy:

We live in a world where we grow up being taught that it is only acceptable for a boy and a girl to be together. So how do you think you would feel if as you grew older and more mature you started noticing people of the same sex as you, rather than the opposite? I can only imagine how hard it would be to come out as homosexual in today's society. I think it is so wrong to look down on those people, or to make fun of them, just because they have a different sexuality than you. There is nothing wrong with them or their brain; they're just different than you. I've heard some people say that they think there is a cure to being homosexual. I can't believe anyone would think that. It's not a disease, or something that you catch from someone else; it's something that they don't have control over. In saying that, I also believe that homosexuality is not a choice. Almost everyone that I talk to says that a person chooses to be gay or straight. That, again, is something that I believe to be very wrong. If people made the choice to be homosexual, there wouldn't be anyone who committed suicide because they were too afraid of what people would think of them, and kids wouldn't be afraid of being disowned if they came out to their parents.There is also the religious aspect to the argument, where people say that if someone is homosexual, they are automatically sent to hell. To me, that seems extremely unfair. So what are homosexual Christians supposed to do? The answer that I constantly get to that question is, ''Just don't acknowledge that they're homosexual and live a 'normal' life.'' Excuse me? So they're just supposed to never find a partner, or marry someone of the opposite sex, have kids, and pretend they're ''normal?'' I don't think that's right, or fair. I wouldn't want to believe in something that would condemn me over something that I didn't even choose.It is fact that as many as 7.2 million Americans under the age of 20 are homosexual, and of those that have already come out, 28% of them felt compelled to drop out of school due to the constant verbal assault that they experienced after people found out. Now, if you think that is terrible, this is even worse: According to pflagupstatesc.org, every day 13 Americans from the ages of 15-24 commit suicide, and homosexual youths make up 30% of the completed suicides. I don't understand why we would put so much pressure on those people, that they would feel that they have to end their lives because of their sexuality. Would it be so hard to just accept them as human beings who have feelings just like everyone else? Being homosexual doesn't make a person inhuman, it makes them just a little bit different than the rest of the world. And for living in a society that tells you to always be yourself, it's a hard price to pay.

Sorell told the Fort Wayne paper she ''didn't think anybody would be upset about it'' at all, because, of course, there was no reason anyone should be upset.
This has all become an amazing example of how out-of-control principals can clamp down on freedom.
Sorell and the paper deserve the support of every freedom-loving American.
And Yoder, well, he just earned a place in our hallowed Halls of Shame. Congratulations!



Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Why we write news

One of the many woes that comes from young people's abandonment of newspapers is that far too many of them haven't got a clue what news is anymore.
So let's take a quick look at news.
News is, at its root, a story about what's new. It can be a thrilling story or a dull one, depending on who's writing it and, to an extent, what it's about. It's hard, for example, to write a gripping tale about the changing price of cattle futures from day to day -- unless a reporter happens to find someone who made, or lost, a bundle on them. But for the mainstream press -- which includes The Tattoo -- news generally aims to tell something interesting, not just potentially useful.
News can be written with verve, even with spunk, but it has to be fair to all sides. It has to try to tell the truth about the story, to give an honest account of what happened and why. It relies on what witnesses, officials and experts tell reporters, who have to talk to everyone they can in the time they have and then pare it all down into a story that informs readers about something that matters. It gives the who, what, where, when and why, but it also should find the hook to make it all matter to a harried reader.
At The Tattoo, we mostly focus on news that young people would find most interesting, but our readers obviously include all ages.
So what's the difference between news and opinion? Sometimes, not all that much, if the writer isn't particularly opinionated. But the idea of an opinion piece is to try to convince readers of a particular point of view. A news story tries instead to lay out the facts in an unbiased way so that readers can draw their own conclusions.
It's harder to write news than it is to tap out a column or a personal essay because news is not about the person who writes the story. It's about the story itself. Reporters are only visible to the degree they're good, or bad, at what they do.
But what writing news does is unimaginably important for anyone who believes in democracy. News stories are the only source of information that even attempt to say what's happening without bias, partisanship or an agenda to push. It's the vital, beating heart of a free society.
And it should alarm everyone, old and young, that it's getting harder and harder to find legitimate news in the morasse of sloppy information that permeates the web.
At The Tattoo, we're trying to uphold the standards and values of the golden age of newsapers, to teach young writers that writing a good news story is ultimately more valuable than churning out more entertainment goo.
The Tattoo is about more than news, naturally. But writing news is why we're here. It's what our writers need to master. It's what makes The Tattoo special. News is our thing. We just need more of it.

Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Halls of Shame, Part 9

Princeton High School Principal Ray Spicher is off to a good start in the new year, earning his way into The Tattoo’s Halls of Shame by censoring a student’s opinion piece that criticized the school’s none-too-good football team.
According to Denise Smith Amos’ story in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Spicher made the staff of Odin’s World “rip out two pages” from its December issue to remove a piece by 17-year-old Evan Payne that criticized the football team for its third straight losing season.
It’s probably no coincidence that the team’s coach is married to the school board president.
Payne told the Enquirer that he tried to write a solid, professional opinion piece.
“I knew it would probably make somebody mad, but for them to cut it out it completely threw me off guard,” Payne told the daily.
Evan’s mother, Paula Payne, wrote in a letter to the school board that her son’s article “merely questions the team’s choice of offense by pointing out the sub par results of the scheme. We contend that this is far from bashing. These are fair questions that could be raised by any sports journalist, high school or professional.”
Spicher, proving once again that he’s not a big fan of words, declined to comment to the Enquirer.
The district’s superintendent, Aaron Mackey, is naturally taking a stand in favor of censorship.
He said he is “taking additional actions to make sure the publication better reflects the district’s attitude and values,” according to the Enquirer. “He is making a district spokeswoman an adviser to the magazine and changing policies to make it clear that advisers can censor articles.”
Mackey said that Payne’s article would have damaged morale, because it is one student or group of students criticizing another group.
“We felt the kid was putting himself out there for some serious ridicule potentially,” Mackey told the paper. “You’re dealing with a very large football squad, not in stature but in numbers. You’ve got one kid putting his neck out there. It may not be in his best interest to have that article. This is not a threat, but it creates an attitude and a situation between kids. You’d have a lot of staff noses out of joint as well.”So there’s a great lesson to learn, too. If a kid has the courage to write the truth – that a football team sucks – it’s best to censor the piece than to protect the writer from what might be a mythical threat.
At a time when American troops are fighting and dying every day to protect America’s cherished freedoms, it’s especially sickening to see men like Mackey and Spicher casually toss the First Amendment in the nearest trash can.
Let’s hope that Payne and Odin’s World keep trying to do journalism with courage and insight, whatever their misguided elders say.
And let’s hope that Americans as a whole have more respect for the Bill of Rights than these school officials at Princeton High who need a good civics lesson.


Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2007 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Christmas in the parish

What the heck does Samantha Perez, right, have on her hands? Truffles.
Yes, it's Christmas in Louisiana, and The Tattoo's accclaimed hurricane diarist has a new entry, about her first Yule back in the old home in St. Bernard Parish. It's another sign of hope and recovery in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Don't miss her story at www.ReadTheTattoo.com.
Also in our new issue is a Justin Skaradosky cartoon and Mallory Mitchell's first piece, a profile of an Alabama ballplayer.
Keep an eye on The Tattoo in the coming days as well. Zach Brokenrope's got some great stories from the Underground Garage that can't be missed.








Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

Coming soon: Little Steven talks to The Tattoo

Tattoo writer Zach Brokenrope and 'Little Steven' Van Zandt in the studios of the Underground Garage in New York City.

Watch The Tattoo in the coming days for much, much more!






Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.

The Tattoo gets a thumbs-up from the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding

"Begun in 1994 with a small group of teen writers in Bristol, Connecticut, The Tattoo has grown into a widely respected online teen newspaper with writers from around the world. The site is filled with articles on every topic of interest to teenagers. A great window into the adolescent world and worldview."

-- Center for Parent/Youth Understanding

That's a pretty nice nod of recognition. We appreciate it.



Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.