We May Be Biased, but....

It looks like working on your high school newspaper or yearbook correlates with higher academic achievement and test performance, according to a new study released this week by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) Foundation. Student journalists earn higher grade point averages, do better on the ACT and earn higher grades in their first year of college, the study found.

Among the highlights, journalism students:

• Scored at the 64th percentile on their ACT composite (overall) score, compared to the 56th percentile for non-journalism students.
• Earned higher HS GPAs in six academic areas, including English, Math, Science and Art.
• Were far more involved in extracurricular activities and took greater leadership roles in those activities (31.6 percent of journalism students were involved in student government, compared to 17.6 percent of non-journalists).

It wasn't all sunshine for the industry-sponsored study, though. Unsurprisingly, non-student media geeks outperformed their ink-stained peers in 2 of 14 academic areas: ACT Math and ACT science scores.

The study tapped data from 31,175 high school students who took the ACT exams during the past five years. For the executive summary, visit: http://www.naa.org/docs/Foundation/journalism%20matters%20exec%20summary.pdf.

Oh, and we think working on student media is also going to become a lot cooler, thanks to MTV's new reality show, The Paper, that premiered this week. The quasi-reality show follows the staff of a high school newspaper based in Florida. It's sure to be filled with all the backstabbing and intrigue made popular in any of the dozens of reality shows produced on MTV.

Check out the first episode: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1584809&vid=221964