Seemingly every New York City high school used to have a student newspaper. That’s what we learned on our trip earlier this year to the Center for Brooklyn History’s archived high school newspaper collection. Today, few NYC high schools have student publications of any kind.

What happened? Where did all the school newspapers go? To find some answers, we sat down with Keith Hefner, founder of Youth Communication, a nonprofit that has been publishing high school students’ stories for more than 40 years.

Then, we meet the adult and students behind Press Pass NYC, an organization dedicated to bringing student newspapers back. It’s an ambitious mission. What will it take for them to succeed?

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The Missing Voices series was reported by Wesley Almanzar, Jadelyn Camey, Fredlove Deshommes, Edward Mui and Jayden Williams. Editing and production support from Sabrina DuQuesnay, Mira Gordon, Abē Levine and Taylor McGraw.

Scoring and sound mixing from Peter Leonard. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Made possible with support from the Education Writers Association and the Pinkerton Foundation.

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