Regional newspaper editor Steve Dyson took time out from the newsroom to give a group of budding reporters a few tips from the top.

Steve, who edits the Evening Gazette on Teesside, paid a visit to the Norton Education Centre where a group of teenagers are busy producing their own newspaper which will eventually be delivered with the Gazette as a special supplement.

The 14 teenagers aged 14 and 15 were hand-picked to take part in the project, which is a joint initiative between Stockton’s Pathfinders programme and the Evening Gazette’s Community Classroom, after applying for posts on the newspaper’s team and undergoing interviews.

Steve was on hand to offer advice as they put together articles on youth issues such as education, bullying and the misuse of drugs.

The project is one of several ways in which the newspaper is involved with young people in the community.

It is also home to a community newsroom where schools and youth groups can visit to gain newspaper experience and it regularly consults a youth panel which gives feedback on how the Gazette can become more approachable to young people.

Steve said that it is important for the newspaper to be able to get involved in the community in this way and for its staff to be available to offer advice.

He said: “Whenever we are asked someone from the newspaper will go along and I really enjoy it.

“If you don’t do it you will have no identity with the youth of today.

“It is a way of giving them an introduction to the paper and making them part of it and hopefully with some of them it will stick.”

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