When Dr. Louise Reid Ritchie worked as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, she also coordinated a community service project at the newspaper called the Gift of Reading, which was responsible for collecting and distributing more than 500,000 books to underprivileged children in Detroit. Ritchie said she “tutored kids and wrote articles soliciting books and supplies for area schools from readers.”
Ritchie is now spearheading a similar type of project as an associate professor of journalism and advisor of the student newspaper at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, FL. With a grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, the school’s biweekly student newspaper, The Famuan, devotes a “FAMU First” page to covering social and political issues both on campus and in the surrounding community.
“It was well designed with a Kente cloth-type border to give it its own identity. It stood out and students noticed it,” Ritchie said. Student-written stories have ranged from examinations of the homeless and battered women to the NAACP and local elections. These articles also pointedly featured problem-solving recommendations to alleviate some of the conditions that were reported.
Getting Involved
