I teach high school journalism in West Palm Beach. Have for a long time.
That job is the reason everything in this shop exists.
The photographs come from the time between the lessons. Airports, train platforms, cemeteries, national parks, the hour of a trip where nobody is performing yet. I started carrying a camera because I needed something to do with my hands that wasn't grading. Turns out I liked what came back.
The book comes from the same place. The Deadline Plate is a story about student journalists who take the work seriously, because I have spent my career watching teenagers take the work seriously while adults told them it was just a school paper. It is not just a school paper. It never was.
The WATER Check started as a classroom problem. Kids kept asking me how to tell if something online was real, and "check the source" is useless advice if nobody shows you how. So I built a framework, taught it, fixed the parts that didn't work, taught it again. The classroom kit in this shop is that framework, cleaned up and ready to run on a Tuesday when your copier is broken and your plan period vanished. Built by a teacher who still has a fourth period.
The stickers are the part of this I did not plan. A line from a story, a shape from a photograph, something small enough to put on a laptop or a water bottle or the inside of a locker door. Kids put stickers on things they intend to keep. I like being on that list.
Here is the whole thing, as plainly as I can put it: I believe people matter more than systems, and I believe the way you prove that is by paying attention to what's in front of you. A photograph is attention. A story is attention. A verification framework is attention with a checklist attached.
Everything here is made by one person. Orders go out from a house, not a warehouse. If something arrives wrong, email me and I'll fix it.
Thanks for being here.
Eric Jourgensen
Jourgensen Media