What do you do when you’re named editor in chief of your school paper without journalistic training? You get up to speed, fast. In this blog post, student journalist Brady Ehrhart recounts how he led the school paper, The Owl’s Hoot, to win recognition as the best student newspaper in Tennessee, thanks in part to the instruction he received at the CSPA Summer Journalism Workshop.
By Brady Ehrhart
A tornado of sorts had torn through my dorm room at 1:30 a.m. Notes, newspapers, magazines, and lanyards were strewn across the floor next to my unpacked suitcase. My laptop, open on my desk, displayed a brightly lit collection of browser tabs and a Google Doc: “ACTION PLAN.”
It was the final night of the 2025 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Summer Journalism Workshop at Columbia University. My school had sent me there to study editorial leadership—just weeks after my appointment as editor in chief of The Owl’s Hoot, my school publication.
It was the first time I had been exposed to the vast world of student media, and perhaps one of the most formative weeks of my life. That night I texted the Owl’s Hoot group chat. “By the end of the year, we’re going to be a whole new staff with a whole new culture and a revamped paper,” I wrote. I’m not sure how much I believed that at the moment. I had spent the week brushing shoulders with nationally recognized student news organizations as a virtually unknown publication. However, I now knew what to do and had a plan. I also knew that we needed to get to work. And we did.
My text wasn’t prophetic; instead it was a visualization of where I knew the staff wanted to be. It took all we had: dedication, overcoming learning curves, and long hours. But less than a year later, our paper was designated the Best Overall Newspaper in Tennessee by the Tennessee High School Press Association. I was also named the Tennessee Student Journalist of the Year. The accolades were incredible—and so was the journey.
The Owl’s Hoot Editor in Chief Brady Ehrhart reads an edition of the paper outside the publication newsroom in spring 2026. (Photo courtesy of Brady Ehrhart)
How My Story Began
My name is Brady Ehrhart, and I was born and raised in Memphis. I went to an all-boys college preparatory school, Memphis University School, and I will attend the University of Richmond as a Richmond Scholar in the fall. If I look at my life like a story I’m writing, what stands out most is a resilient journey that can only be described as a Cinderella story that led me to my passion for words and writing. I was born with a submucous cleft palate, a congenital and rare birth defect in which the soft palate of the mouth does not form properly. As a toddler, I underwent reconstructive surgery but was left with a debilitating speech impediment. Doctors questioned whether I would ever be able to speak normally. But after years of intense speech therapy and therapeutic reading, I can speak clearly. I developed a nightly ritual of reading novels, and I fell in love with language and began to write for fun. When I started my freshman year of high school, I decided to give writing for the school publication a try.
I enjoyed working on the paper, and at the end of my junior year, I became editor in chief. I realized rather suddenly how absolutely behind we were compared with peer publications. Our paper had gone through more than a decade of stagnation. We were print-only, and a club format. We had a small staff, and our adviser had just retired. With no clear direction charted for the coming year, I knew I needed to work directly with the school administration to put a plan together.
The prospect was daunting. While I loved writing for the paper, I had no formal journalistic training or instruction and certainly did not know how to lead a newsroom. I had never edited an article, and I didn't even know what a lede was. Until then, my writing had been driven by instinct, for the most part—and instinct wouldn’t cut it here. I felt a little rudderless until deliverance came via an email. Thanks to an endowment from my school, I was able to enroll in the Editorial Leadership class at the CSPA Summer Journalism Workshop at Columbia. While I looked forward to it, I had no clue what I was getting myself into.
CSPA: A ‘Catalyst for Change’
My week at Columbia was a whirlwind of questions and new beginnings. There, my newspaper felt like chump change compared with the award-winning publications present. My instructor Debra Klevens had won nine Pacemakers from the National Scholastic Press Association and multiple Gold Crown awards from CSPA, and was designated the 2023 CSPA National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.
My concerns about my lack of development and experience as a journalist were quickly alleviated by the intensely supportive staff and fellow workshop attendees. Once she understood the circumstances I was in with The Owl’s Hoot, Klevens took me under her wing, gave me personalized tutoring, and shared multiple organizational tools and resources that I needed to reshape The Owl’s Hoot. Her instruction and encouragement meant everything. I learned story generation tactics, how to establish editorial processes, and how to edit articles and recruit staff.
The experiential learning I got at Columbia changed my life. Whether it was shaking hands with writers from The New York Times or interviewing Broadway actors, CSPA maximized the media-dense opportunities of New York City and showed me what a career in journalism could mean. CSPA was a catalyst for change for me and free range for experimentation.
Executing the Plan
When I returned to Memphis, I put what I had learned at CSPA into action and completely overhauled our newspaper. During the summer, I put in frequent 10-hour workdays redesigning the print paper, establishing editorial processes, and working with the administration as they appointed a new journalism adviser.
Soon after the school year started, we established our publication’s first-ever website, using Student Newspapers Online (SNO) as a web publishing platform. This was a massive leap that I thought would take years, but we did it in three months. Print was no longer a barrier for us to publish, and that flexibility also changed our mindset. While our website was in its infancy, we learned the intense benefits of publishing online and its drawbacks. Given that we could publish instantaneously, we had to rethink our publishing schedule for online content. Furthermore, we had to completely streamline our leadership and editing processes to handle the increase in content production, which taught us all more efficient time management.
Because of all the changes we made, we were able to respond more quickly to news and cover it better. An example of that was the October No Kings protests in Memphis. I wrote a long-form piece accompanied by the most photos I had ever taken for a piece. It was also one of the first times I had used a camera. It was a thrilling story to cover, but it was also challenging to produce. Interviewing congressional candidates speaking at the demonstration felt incredible. Less exciting was finding a way to maximize presentation formats on our Content Management System, SNO. While a challenge, it made me appreciate how editorially important web design is, what goes into it, and ultimately, how rewarding it is to persevere.
What also kept me going the rest of the year was the support I got from the people I met in the workshop. Being in a class with other students who shared the same passion inspired me. I developed lifelong friendships at Columbia beyond the classroom, through the freedom of exploring New York, the RA-hosted events, and the laughter over breakfasts before class. My hallway neighbor from Columbia and I currently work together on a nonprofit, BufferSpace.
A photo of the “Write Like You Mean It” sign that inspired Brady Ehrhart’s JEA Journalist of the Year portfolio title. (Photo courtesy of Brady Ehrhart)
‘Write Like You Mean It’
While my story arc of running The Owl’s Hoot has come to a close, I know that its future is bright. The staff has more than tripled from 10 to 35 for the 2026–27 school year; we are now among the largest student media organizations in Tennessee. I am proud of our publication and what we accomplished this year. I attribute much of my success this year to my experience and support from CSPA, where I learned that the best way to create change is to take small but brave steps. My experience as editor of The Owl’s Hoot was among the hardest yet most thrilling and enriching experiences of my life.
Helming this publication taught me to “write like I mean it," and that attitude holds true for the rest of the staff. We even placed it as a sign above the door of our publication office the spring I was named editor, and in a full-circle moment, I titled my JEA Journalist of the Year portfolio “Write Like You Mean It.” This mantra of embracing hard work was learned through hours of editing and reporting—and nitpicking every word with absolute precision because every article reflects our mission and our voice. I encourage all journalists to embrace that philosophy and apply it to everything they do, both inside and outside journalism.
In closing, I want student journalists who were once as inexperienced or unconfident as I was to know this: True success in storytelling and journalism does not depend on when you start.
It depends on your dreams. And what you create.
Registration for the CSPA Summer Journalism Workshop is open.
Classes include Advanced News Reporting and Writing, Broadcast Journalism, Design Concepts, Editorial Leadership, News Redesign, and News Reporting and Writing.
Residential, commuter, and online learning options are available.