Station Spotlight | Mentors Make a Difference

SRL mentors provide a critical service to our program, linking students to their local public media station and peeling the curtain behind the professional world of journalism and media making. In recognition of the commitment and educational experiences our partner stations provide teachers and students to help realize our mission, we are updating our monthly “Partner Station of the Month” feature to “Station Spotlight.” In doing so, we hope to share more stories of inspiration and the ways in which public media is making a difference with SRL.

We are proud to be partnered with 40 local PBS stations where media professionals donate so much of their time to mentoring students. These inspiring words from just a few of our generous station volunteers shine light on the power of SRL.

“I don’t think a PBS affiliate station could be involved in anything more vitally connected to the mission of public media than Student Reporting Labs. I say that from a particular angle, as an education person working in public media, but Student Reporting Labs is absolutely the  nexus of education and public media, and media literacy education.” – John Dollar, Education Specialist, Wisconsin Public Media

“Being involved with the Student Reporting Labs and being open to different concepts and ideas outside of their local little community, they [students] have found their passion for what they want to do moving forward.” – Brian Spellman, Director, K-12 School Services, Kentucky Educational Television 

“Some of the students I’m working with, they want to be engineers, they want to be doctors, they don’t want to be journalists, but they also want to know how to deal with the public. They want to know how to be curious and how to ask questions and how not to be shy about doing it. Those are all the things that we’re hoping to bring to the table for them, so they can use the experience regardless of what field they go into.” – Nancy Montoya, News and Public Affairs Reporter, Arizona Public Media