A Survey of High School Newspapers in New Mexico, 1960

This study attempts to provide an up-to-date appraisal of student newspaper in New Mexico high schools. Special attention is given to tracing objectives of the newspapers, the available advertiser ship, journalistic offerings in high schools, staff selection, trends in production, and finance of the publication. The objectives of the New Mexico high school student newspapers and a comparison with objectives listed by journalism text authors. “To disseminate school news” was the most frequently noted objective and was the most frequent listing as prime objective of the newspaper. “To build morale and school spirit” and “to provide an exploratory experience in journalism” received frequent mention and finished second and third in that order of mention. There is a lack of college journalism study by newspaper advisers although most schools with enrollment over 500 students had qualified journalism teachers and newspaper advisers with journalism majors a poor third. Professional journalism experience was not a part of the majority of the advisers’ teaching preparation and few returned to do graduate work in journalism even though they had no prior training in the field