9-year-old reporter breaks crime news, posts videos, fires back at critics

[jimmy olsen]

People are just being salty because she makes their former nine year old selves look pathetic in comparison.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/05/9-year-old-reporter-breaks-crime-news-posts-videos-fires-back-at-critics/

9-year-old reporter breaks crime news, posts videos, fires back at critics

By Tom Jackman April 5 at 5:00 AM

Reporter Hilde Kate Lysiak got the tip early Saturday afternoon that there was heavy police activity on Ninth Street. She hustled over with her pen and camera, as any good reporter would, and soon she posted something short online, beating all her competitors. Then, working the neighbors and the cops, she nailed down her scoop with a full-length story and this headline:

"EXCLUSIVE: MURDER ON NINTH STREET!"

The online story not only beat the local daily paper, but she also included a short video from the crime scene, assuring viewers that "I'm working hard on this investigation."

Then Monday came and Hilde had to go back to third grade. She is 9.

As the editor and publisher of the Orange Street News, in her hometown of Selinsgrove, Pa., about 50 miles north of Harrisburg, Lysiak is a dedicated multi-media journalist who loves going after crime stories. Her father is an author and former New York Daily News reporter who took Hilde to his newsroom and to stories he covered around New York and hooked her on the rush of chasing news.

She also began covering businesses and schools and any other local news, and did so well that she was profiled in the Columbia Journalism Review and on the Today show. Still, crime was her thing. Recently, she wrote a series of stories about the dreaded Selinsgrove vandal who was damaging plants around town. "BREAKING NOW! VANDAL STRIKES AGAIN!" Hilde wrote last month, with accompanying video. "Officials Pledge to 'Get to Bottom' of Vandalism," came the natural follow-up.

And it was her tenaciousness on the vandalism story that led her to the murder scene, her father said. "She heard they'd got the vandal," Matthew Lysiak said. "She goes down to the police department and says, 'I heard you caught the vandal.' The chief says, 'I've got a big story, I've gotta go.'" Hilde began following up, and in the town of about 5,000 people, soon learned where the action was. "Because she's the only one doing community news, she's developed sources who trust her to cover the news. One of her sources contacted her, and she was able to confirm it with law enforcement. She knocked on every door, like she'd seen me do with the Daily News. There were no other reporters there."

She headed home with the basics, wrote it out for her dad, who posted it on the website. Then she went back to the scene, ferreted out more information and posted a full story, photo and video hours before the Daily Item, a newspaper and website which covers four counties in the Susquehanna Valley. The Item's editor and the borough president did not respond to emails seeking comment Monday.

"She's really motivated," her father said. Though some have questioned his parenting skills, Lysiak said his daughter "has been in the housing projects in the Bronx with me. She doesn't have a lot of fear. She just wants to get the stories out. And she really wants to report real news." I asked Hilde what the police think of her and she said, "The police never really answer anything about my questions."

Hilde said she doesn't much care for the criticism she receives. "People thought I should be like playing tea parties or doing something other than being at the crime scene," and "I haven't really checked" to see if she had received more after her Sunday video blast. In her response, she said, "Because of my work, I was able to inform the people that there's a terrible murder, hours before my competition even got to the scene. In fact some of the adult-run newspapers were reporting the wrong news, or no news at all."

She does acknowledge that her 12-year-old sister, Isabel, edits and posts her videos, and also writes a kids' column for the Item, identified as "the youngest paid advice columnist in America." But that's a whole separate publication. "I'm the only one who writes the Orange Street News," Hilde said. She also publishes and distributes a print edition once a month, with paid mail subscriptions for $10 a year.

And last month, the Orange Street News website racked up nearly 18,000 page views, driven in part by her investigation of drugs in the middle school. I know some bloggers who would love page view numbers like that.

[Monoriu]

I just don't think being a journalist these days has great job security or pay. 

[Eddie Teach]

Probably pays well enough once you've got that first Pulitzer under your belt.

[Monoriu]

Probably pays well enough once you've got that first Pulitzer under your belt.

Of course, but how many people win Pulitzers anyway?  I think it is much more realistic to look at average numbers rather than the maximum figures.  Top piano players earn a ton, but that's not a very good reason to spend your childhood practising the piano because most piano players don't earn a lot.  I can't recall the last time I paid anything for news, and media outlets close one after another. 

[DGuller]

Her dad should really be more protective of his daughter.  Surely he of all people should know how perilous this job is for your material wealth.

[Phillip V]

I just don't think being a journalist these days has great job security or pay. 

No.  This little girl fits the classic profile of a young star/entrepreneur.  Professionally mentored and socialized early by an adult (parent) and then already "working" while the other kids are 100% doing stupid shit or being coddled.

As a Pennsylvania blonde girl, she reminds me of recent precocious persons from there such as Taylor Swift and Jackie Evancho, though those girls were of the music type.

[garbon]

I just don't think being a journalist these days has great job security or pay. 

No.  This little girl fits the classic profile of a young star/entrepreneur.  Professionally mentored and socialized early by an adult (parent) and then already "working" while the other kids are 100% doing stupid shit or being coddled.

So made an adult at an early age? Sounds lovely if your description were true...

[grumbler]

So made an adult at an early age? Sounds lovely if your description were true...

In Just Plain English, what are you trying to say?  Is the due to being professionally mentored, or what?

[Valmy]

Maybe being a reporter is just what this kid does for fun? Plenty of kids her age are having fun doing other things most people consider "work".

[mongers]

I'm inspired. 

[grumbler]

Maybe being a reporter is just what this kid does for fun? Plenty of kids her age are having fun doing other things most people consider "work".

Gifted kids will almost always* have some project like this on which they expend a lot of energy and try, as best they can, to mimic their exemplars.  it is sometimes sports, sometimes science-related, or mathematical, or writing, or whatever.  It is, as you say, fun for them.  I suppose it does look weird to outsiders. 


*I know about this because one of my degrees is in gifted ed.

[dps]

Maybe being a reporter is just what this kid does for fun? Plenty of kids her age are having fun doing other things most people consider "work".

Gifted kids will almost always* have some project like this on which they expend a lot of energy and try, as best they can, to mimic their exemplars.  it is sometimes sports, sometimes science-related, or mathematical, or writing, or whatever.  It is, as you say, fun for them.  I suppose it does look weird to outsiders. 


*I know about this because one of my degrees is in gifted ed.

Keep in mind that Mono was the one questioning her activities, and to him, best as I can tell, doing anything for fun rather than profit is an alien concept.

[Eddie Teach]

The story suggests there is some money being made. There's a 10$ yearly subscription fee, and her sister is paid for her column.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm inspired. 

When I was around 10, all jazzed up about the election news coverage, I had decided I would start my own newspaper out of my bedroom, although more of a news weekly than a daily.
 
Took a wooden crate, turned it upside down and it became the News Desk. 
Collected a few miscellaneous office supplies and, with just a legal pad and a box of carbon paper, I began the Ryan Weekly^tm.
Put together a few pieces...police news from Dad's department...some neighborhood stuff...fluff pieces about the dogs...AP stringers on Election '80, you know, because that's what small papers with limited staff do...using pencil, I meticulously put together several copies, printing deep enough for the carbon paper until my hand was numb.  I wanted it to look more like a gazette than a broadsheet, so I stapled the pages down the center.  Worked my ass off all day Saturday, making those copies for the DEBUT SUNDAY EDITION.

Sunday morning, went straight to the kitchen table, and sold my first copy to my mother for 25 cents.  Went to sell a copy to Dad, who said, "Nah, I'll just read your mother's copy."  Lesson: motherfucking learned. 



Fuck this little shit.  Fuck her in the fucking ear.

[Monoriu]

Keep in mind that Mono was the one questioning her activities, and to him, best as I can tell, doing anything for fun rather than profit is an alien concept.

Obviously you haven't read the anime thread.  Or you think I think watching anime is good for my wallet