NYC Kid Reporter's Next Big Story: Covering Legoland's Launch

NEW YORK — Waverly Winchester had a pen and paper with her, as she always did, when she surveyed Halloween decorations on a walk with her mom in the fall of 2015. The aspiring reporter, then 7, jotted down notes about the spooky decor she saw on the Upper East Side houses.

Waverly compiled her observations into an article and asked her mother, Denise Winchester, if she could find someone to publish it. A search for local kids’ news websites came up empty — so Waverly decided to start one of her own.

“I really like reporting because I get to go to cool places and I get to write about it,” Waverly said. “And it’s never boring.”

About a year later came the launch of Kids’ News NYC, where Waverly is known as the "kiditor-in-chief." Now the 10-year-old is taking on what her mom called “the biggest scoop of her career”: covering the launch of the sprawling new Legoland New York Resort as the first member of the park’s “Kid Reporter" team.

Legoland is searching for five more kids ages 6 to 12 who will get an inside look at the theme park in Goshen, about an hour outside Manhattan, and cover events leading up to its opening in the spring of next year.

The junior journalists will produce content for Legoland’s website and social media pages and give visitors a sense of what the experience is like through the eyes of the park’s target audience.

“The resort is built for kids — we’re thinking, who’s better to tell the story than the kids themselves?” said Matt Besterman, Legoland’s public relations manager.

Waverly is also the face of the online campaign Legoland started earlier this month to recruit the new reporters, who must live within 100 miles of Goshen. Candidates are asked to post a one-minute video to Facebook explaining why they’d be a good fit for the job.

About 100 kids had submitted audition videos as of Monday afternoon. The winners will be announced at the end of February.

The Dubai Legoland put together a team of kid reporters after that park opened, Besterman said, but this is the first time one has been formed in the U.S.

"I keep looking at their website and getting so excited about all the different worlds and rides that they’re going to have," Waverly said. "I’m excited to give my classmates and readers the inside scoop."

While Legoland may be her biggest get yet, Waverly has published some other notable stories on Kids’ News NYC, where she and five to 10 other reporters write about kids’ activities around the city.

She has landed interviews with such high-profile subjects as the ringmaster of the Big Apple Circus and a member of the famously silent Blue Man Group. She gets some help from her mom, who corresponds with the subjects of stories and gives guidance to the reporters.

Denise, an assistant principal and former English teacher, didn’t know how to set up a website when the idea for Kids’ News NYC came about. But she said it was important to nurture the passions of a kid who was “born with a pen in her hand.”

“I was there for when we really didn’t know what the heck we were doing and it was just a tiny little kid with a tiny little idea, and I obviously am filled with pride at her abilities and her creativity and how focused she is at, to me, such a young age,” Denise said.

Waverly said she wants to eventually expand Kids’ News NYC’s reach so kids in other states could submit to the site. She also wants to do more interviews — she said her dream assignment is to talk with Lin-Manuel Miranda of “Hamilton” fame.

“My focus is to get people out and go to see all the cool places in New York,” she said. "I want them to know that there’s news on every corner."

(Lead image: Waverly Winchester of the Upper East Side is the first member of Legoland Resort New York's "Kid Reporter" team. Photo courtesy of Kids News NYC)