How colorful can journalism be? As diverse in color and shape as life can bring, especially in a lively school. With the “Moron” from the Carl-von-Ossietzky-Gymnasium, the most colourful, diverse and also the smartest school newspaper has been chosen as the best young medium in Berlin. That’s not a surprise – especially not when you visit the editorial office in Pankow.
Poems, collages and stories in front of the school gate
20 high school graduates discuss their topics in a structured and relaxed manner in the afternoon and even stay up all night shortly before the editorial deadline: They plan interviews, invite guests – and use the entire creativity of their big school to capture poems, collages and funny surveys for their paper . There is a lot of laughter at the editorial meetings, but also careful planning – and the chief editors around Carla Siepman (who meanwhile already writes for the Tagesspiegel and interviews top Berlin politicians) as well as Hannah Reschke, Antonia Heinlein and Sophie Höpfner brings a few biscuits to cheer up all participants. Life can be so colorful after school is over. You can learn that from the “Moron”.
What’s the result? An almost 70-page magazine from which some journalism products that have frozen in maturity could learn a few things. The last issue, written by many young people, asked no less than a fundamental question: “How stuck are we in the system?” school system (at least he tries).
And this time the editors go outside the school gates again to explore life: they interview an animal keeper and a fireman about their working conditions or describe in a report how to change the system on the fly – by swapping rooms with your sister.
A wall newspaper at the school once triggered a GDR-wide scandal
With its socially critical interjections and witty ideas, the “Moron” follows two traditions of the Carl von Ossietzky High School, which has always cultivated a critical spirit. A wall newspaper criticizing military parades once triggered a school scandal across the GDR, which concerned the highest levels of government and led to the expulsion of schoolchildren – a beacon for youth resistance against the SED dictatorship.
And even after the revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were many newspapers from schoolchildren who wrote about the new beginnings – including “sacral thrombosis”, which I used to let off steam as a journalist when I was young. As in the past, the young newspaper survives on throwing together the diversity of the student body, the special history of the school and the colorful life of young people.
We are all plants, we need sun.
A student of the Carl-von-Ossietzky-Gymnasium
The “Moron” succeeds because its journalistic forms are diverse: There are film reviews (of course from “Systemsprenger”), questionnaires with answers from students, a colorful sneaker puzzle and previously secret tips for copying from class tests.
The magazine shows what school always is despite all the organizational chaos: living space, dream factory, social fueling station. Or as a schoolgirl says on the lovingly designed page with the funniest schoolyard sayings: “We are all plants, we need sun.”
The sun of journalism is always curiosity. In the “Moron” it shines brightly and shines far beyond Pankow.
These are the award winners
high schools
- Moron — Carl von Ossietzky High School
- The Zeppelin — Eckener Gymnasium
- PaulsenBrot — Paulsen-Gymnasium Berlin
elementary schools
- Kiezwelt — Humboldthain Elementary School
- The Onion — Elisabeth Abegg Elementary School
- La Voz de Papel — House Castle School
Integrated secondary school
- Eiffel News — Gustave Eiffel School
- Full pot — Reinhold Burger School
high school centers
- RAUSCH — Ostrom-Humboldt upper school
- Anna Freud Culture — Anna Freud School
community schools
- Fürst News — Paula Fürst Community School
- SCHNIPSEL — Campus Hannah Höch
- Don’t LOOK away — alternative school Berlin
special schools
- The Mummelblatt — School at Mummelsoll
- Bee mail — School at Bienwaldring
- ARS student newspaper — Adolf Reichwein School
extra prices
- School history: Shyft — Walther-Rathenau-Gymnasium
- Multimedia: Herder newspaper — Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium
- Animal welfare: FriedeNOW — Friedenauer community school
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