When I was covering minor league hockey for the Trenton Times in the early 2000s, I organized what I called ECHL-NRN, with NRN standing for "News Reporters Network."
This was a way of connecting all of the writers in a league that stretched from Trenton all the way southwest to New Orleans. It allowed us to unite when a reporter was denied access to a team locker room and when one owner shoved a reporter. It also allowed us to exchange information and to ask "have you ever seen this before?"
Wherever I've been, I've felt such organizations were important and I've been wondering for a couple of years now why there aren’t more such organizations that unite college student journalists, not just nationally but locally. I know that the NABJ and other organizations have student chapters and that's great, but it's not exactly what I'm talking about.
That's why I was so glad to hear about what Haverford student Jackson Juzang is doing with an organization he founded last year, the Philadelphia Student Press Association. This is a good start – it connects senior newspaper management at 11 schools, in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs. As it says on its website:
We are founded to amplify student voices, promote press freedom, and build pathways into professional journalism.
Jackson, who is involved with many different projects at Haverford (the school paper, the track team, and his own business) was our podcast guest this week. Here's a lightly-edited excerpt from our conversation. I'd also recommend you listen to the interview.
Explain what the organization is and how it came to be
It is a nonprofit that serves as a coalition or a backbone infrastructure, towards student newsrooms and journalists within Greater Philadelphia and South Jersey. A lot of the things we put on are educational workshops or networking opportunities and collaborative reporting efforts through our own mini-paper or reporting efforts.
We have like a unique financial structure. We allocate money to newsrooms on a proposal basis. We treat ourselves as a mini-grant structure where people can rely on us for other resources, backbone stuff. The whole goal is to essentially be a sustainable way for student newsrooms to continuously elevate themselves and not really feel like they have to rely on uneven institutional accessibility and resources that may not be there at all times.
Why did you start it?
Haverford has had its own share of problems with their newspaper. I'm the associate editor, like you said, and it has been really frustrating to work with higher education and the administrations.
There's just been so many variables as to why our financial structure within our own newspaper is ridiculous. So that encouraged me to think outwardly and see how I can hopefully have an impact with other schools. And I humbly say I try to be a natural born leader. It's pretty second nature. So, I figured I'd start something like this
What would you like to do with the organization that you haven't done yet?
I have a long-term goal of revitalizing certain student newsrooms within Philadelphia. I know Lincoln University and Widener University have inactive papers due to lack of interest and lack of resources. But you know, you can't really have interest in something that doesn't have interest back.
So trying to revitalize those newsrooms, trying to maybe give them some initial funding. Try to garner their relationship with journalism and writing. That would be a huge success to me. And just trying to continue up and build those core pillars with collaboration, being able to have consistent resources to give to student newsrooms, that would all be a cherry on the cake.
What advice do you have for students in other areas that would want to start an organization like this?
Just to be ambitious. Our generation is certainly living through a very strange time in terms of ownership and being able to kind of solidify yourself and start a life for yourself. My generation is generally about to graduate from higher education and they're gonna be in the job market. I know there's a lot of angst and stress that goes into just trying to survive.
I think it's a great period of your life to Regardless of what's going on in your life, to explore and to really go for it and shoot for the stars. My advice for someone building an organization like this is just to continue to stay true to yourself. Know that there's gonna be ups and downs, ebbs and flows. That's a part of being an entrepreneur, part of being a leader, is that you're gonna learn things about yourself along the way while you have to maintain a certain level of consistency and communication that people aren't gonna be able to see from the outside.
It's a bumpy process. You have to just continue to stick with it. Make sure that you continue to tell yourself why you're there in the first place and keep moving along.
In 2025 we had a new episode each week and featured more than 60 guests. I don’t know that we were the most diverse journalist interviews podcast out there, but we certainly tried to be.
We look forward to bringing you more journalist interviews in 2026 but we can use your help. Tell a friend, a relative, a colleague about us and let them know that our episodes are worth their time.
A reminder to professors and teachers
You can find episode guides that you can use if you wish to integrate the podcast within your classroom. There are more than 50 available. Each one has suggested questions for discussion and activities a class can do.
I’m also happy to help you find an episode that would be appropriate for what you’re teaching. Reach out to me at [email protected].
Additionally, I’ve curated some of the 2025 episodes into groups. If you’re teaching a class or unit in any of these subjects:
- Investigative Journalism
- Feature Writing
- Covering government policy
- Social justice, immigration, and identity
- Local News
Check out the sets of episode guides that would be useful to you. I don’t have a good term for them, so I’m borrowing from Bluesky and calling them “Starter Packs” - sets of 5-8 episodes in each category that may be useful in your classroom.