9-year-old journalist and the news about the murder
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| 9-year-old journalist Hilde Kate Lysiak (right) working - Photo: Cjr |
On April 2, this 9-year-old girl was the first to report a murder in her hometown hours before other professional newspapers.
Hilde Kate Lysiak is the editor-in-chief of Orange Street News (OSN), a monthly newspaper focusing on community life in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, which began publication in November 2014.
In addition to its print edition, OSN also has a website that covers a wide range of news, including vandalism, water quality, and drug addiction in middle schools. The recent murder was the biggest and most serious story OSN has ever reported.
“This is her first time reporting this kind of news,” said her father, Matthew Lysiak, a former reporter for the New York Daily News who says the times he took his daughter to the newsroom when she was a baby were what inspired Hilde Kate Lysiak to do the job.
On April 2, while Lysiak was asking the police about the conclusion of the vandalism case being investigated at the police station, she heard the police chief say he had important work to do.
Lysiak soon discovered that a call to the sheriff had come in about a murder just a few blocks from her home, so she immediately headed to the scene, knocking on doors and talking to neighbors to gather information.
She then went home, gave her father the news brief, and asked him to post it on the paper’s website with the headline: “Exclusive: Murder on 9th Street.” She then returned to the scene to film a short video for the website and YouTube channel. All of this Lysiak did hours before her competitors.
Regarding this, Lysiak's father said: "She told me that after the initial confusion about having a 9-year-old girl asking questions, everyone treated her very well. They treated her like a grown-up reporter."
Lysiak’s parents helped her edit her work for the OSN website, but they did very little editing. They also helped Hilde filter emails to keep inappropriate information from reaching their daughter. Many of the people who emailed her didn’t know that Lysiak was only 9, so they reported very complicated stories of child abuse, according to Bridget Reddan.
However, Lysiak’s father also said that when the newspaper first came out, everyone was supportive because she only focused on “cute” stories. But when Lysiak started reporting on serious issues, some people began to criticize her, saying that she shouldn’t be doing this because she was young and a girl.
This made Lysiak unhappy. In an interview with Yahoo!, she said: “When people told me I couldn’t do it because I was a girl, I got really angry. I got angry because people thought that just because I was 8 or 9 years old, I couldn’t do the job well.”
In fact, Lysiak has accomplished more than a nine-year-old could ever hope to do, and not just in journalism. In March 2016, Lysiak started a GoFundMe page to raise $40,000 to help the Selinsgrove community hire a new police officer because she saw an increase in vandalism.
On the OSN newspaper's Facebook page, besides many compliments for Lisyak, there are also comments saying that at her age, she should only play with toys or dolls, not play the role of a journalist.
Lysiak, however, responded in a video, reading out loud the hateful comments and saying: “In fact, there are some adult newspapers that have reported the news wrongly or have no news at all. I know some people want me to sit still because I am 9 years old. But if you want me to stop reporting, get off your computer and do something called news.”
In 2015, in an interview with Columbia Journalism Magazine, Lysiak said that she did not want to work for a newspaper in the future, but wanted to own her own newspaper. Perhaps no one doubted this ability, because at only 9 years old, Lysiak had already learned the very basics of journalism.
When asked by a CNN reporter what he enjoys most about writing, Lysiak said: “I enjoy giving people news.”
According to the OSN website, a one-year subscription to the OSN print edition costs $14.99. Payments can be made by check, cash, or via Paypal. The newspaper also welcomes subscribers outside the United States.
According to TTO
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