Sparta — Jurnee Ross knows how to navigate the news, and now the Sparta High School senior is helping show others the way.
Jurnee has been selected to serve on the PBS News Student Reporting Labs’ 2024-25 Student Advisory Team. She’s one of 31 students from across the country who will be helping determine the editorial direction of future student coverage.
The SRL program, which Jurnee was introduced to last year in Chad Wagner’s Web Multimedia class, essentially turns high-school classrooms into functioning PBS affiliates. Participating classes use PBS-approved story prompts developed by the advisory team to gather localized, student-led coverage on important issues.
“It’s just a way for kids to be able to learn all the components of news reporting, news broadcasting, stuff like that, before they go to college,” Jurnee said. “I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far.”
For the past two years, Jurnee has been writing, filming, anchoring and editing news video submissions to PBS through Wagner’s class. She’s handling just about every aspect of production herself. As part of the advisory team, she’ll pass on some of what she’s learned by creating prompts for students to use during the 2025-26 school year.
‘I want to show people that news doesn’t have to be sad. … There’s happy news out there that people can still be informed about.’
— Sparta senior Jurnee Ross
When she learned she’d been selected, she couldn’t quite believe it.
“I was honestly really surprised. I submitted my application and I didn’t think I’d get picked,” Jurnee said. “There’s students that are from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and then there’s me, from Sparta.”
Jurnee added: “I was super excited and I think there’s a lot of smart people in there. … It’s just cool to be with kids who have the same interests as you, and meeting people from all over the country is super cool.”
Passion for the Craft
Jurnee has had an interest in broadcasting and media for as long as she can remember. She developed her video-production chops early on, helping with her mom’s YouTube channel, and soon found ways to apply her media skills to her schoolwork.
“We did a project in my sophomore year where we made a news channel. … I really liked it and was super engaged with it,” Jurnee said. “Mr. Wagner told me about the program they were doing — the PBS Student Reporting Labs — so I took his class again and did it my junior year, and I’m taking it again this year because I loved it so much.”
During her junior year, Jurnee also served as editor of Sparta Lodown, the high school’s student newspaper. And in Web Development, she’s made videos that were featured on Sparta’s Spartan News.
Pushing for Positivity
You’d never know it by her resume, but Jurnee doesn’t watch the news. She said it’s “full of a bunch of stuff that’s really depressing.”
“I want to show people that news doesn’t have to be sad,” she said. “There’s happy news out there that people can still be informed about.”
She added that she’s over politics and election coverage, which drove a lot of the prompts for 2024-25 developed by last year’s advisory team.
“I’d kind of like to steer away from the political stuff now that the election is done,” Jurnee said. “I think a lot more kids would be interested in the program and have a lot more fun if there was more of a broad range of topics.
“It seems like it’s solely on politics and protests and gun violence. Kids want to see more of the diverse projects.”
So far this year, Jurnee has produced videos on Sparta’s autumn tradition of decorating hay bales, the difference between murals and graffiti in Grand Rapids, and the challenges faced by immigrants coming to America from other countries.
Jurnee said topics like immigration are relevant not only to Sparta but to the nation as a whole.
“Sparta is a big apple-farming town, so we have a lot of people who come from different backgrounds,” she said. “And America is a melting pot; that’s what we’re known for. I think it’s important to highlight those stories and know about all the different people who live here.”
Jurnee said her favorite step in the journalism process is interviewing people, exposing herself to a wide variety of viewpoints and researching issues of interest.
“I just like bringing stories that maybe are in the shadows, into light. I love investigating stuff and researching stuff and just getting into the details of things,” she said.
Wagner, Jurnee’s Web Development teacher, is thrilled with the work she’s done so far, and he thinks big things are ahead for the senior.
“Jurnee has been an all-star student for me and has produced some excellent work,” Wagner said. “Jurnee is a great pick for this program because she has a great sense of what kids would want to hear about. She chooses stories that have strong visuals and she is committed to producing high-quality work.”
Jurnee is not the only Kent County student on the SRL Advisory Team. Nuha Hussein of East Kentwood High School was also selected.
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