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'The Mash': Newspaper Written For Teens By Teens

CHICAGO (CBS) ― It's a newspaper for teenagers – written by teens. It's called "The Mash." Chicago Public Schools are teaming up with one of the biggest papers in America.

CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports that students at Kenwood Academy scan The Mash - a free paper that beginning today will be distributed once a week to more than 100,000 Chicago public high school students.

"I love it," said sophomore Destiny Hekmatpour. "Great pictures, great quality."

"I think it's great," said junior Sylva Hinton. "There's a lot of stuff to read – sports, Obama, the latest news."

The Mash is produced by the Chicago Tribune and distributed free of charge to students at all 130 Chicago public high schools.

"I'm just excited to see more kids reading a newspaper," said Jason Rhodes, Journalism Teacher.

And he's even more excited to see kids writing one that on its inaugural day already boasts one of the largest circulations in the state.

"They get a chance to see themselves - their bylines, their photo credits – not just within the school, but also out there citywide," Rhodes said.

Senior Laura Saenz contributed to this week's "Chatter" column where she predicts who will be the Bears MVP.

"I chose Adrian Peterson because he's showing a lot of potential in the preseason now," Saenz said.

Laura used to think of herself as a terrible writer - now she's considering a career in journalism.

"I've learned to love it, you could say," Saenz said.

What truly makes writing for The Mash unique is that the students will actually end up getting paid anywhere from $10 to $25 depending on the size of the article.

"It's not about the money," said senior Destry Mays. "It's about the passion."

"It's very exciting, I got to interview a very big star a couple weeks ago – Sanaa Lathan," said senior Carmen Jordan. "And it was just amazing. It was something that I never thought that I'd be doing."

Now she and scores of other students are doing just that - writing, shooting and creating a paper for themselves and more importantly by themselves.

The paper is not meant to compete with other high school papers.

If you want to read the articles or if you're a CPS student who wants to write for the paper, visit http://themash.com/

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