I cherish lifestyles and features so much because it simply is a story about people. Something everyone can relate to yet holds a completely different perspective. Whether it is news, sports, opinion, A&E, it is always about people, the community, the audience.
For me, writing does not have to be the most eloquent thing ever. The purpose of writing is not to sound all smart where someone needs a dictionary to understand you, but to convey an importat message. I love reporting because I do not need to write fluff, but facts. I love the process of connecting with people and interviewing them that comes with feature writing.
I cherish lifestyles and features so much because it simply is a story about people. Something everyone can relate to yet holds a completely different perspective. Whether it is news, sports, opinion, A&E, it is always about people, the community, the audience.
For me, writing does not have to be the most eloquent thing ever. The purpose of writing is not to sound all smart where someone needs a dictionary to understand you, but to convey an importat message. I love reporting because I do not need to write fluff, but facts. I love the process of connecting with people and interviewing them that comes with feature writing.
Leadership
I am honored to have been the first junior editor-in-chief and to serve an additional year. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to learn from my past year and continue working towards greater things. Going on three years with The Crimson Crier, there is clear evidence of growth as a publication and personally in each and every one of my staff members. In the midst of recovering from virtual school, I am proud to have led my staff to national and state awards superior to the past. Beyond just developing my staff's journalistic skills, I hope to have strengthened the connections within our staff. I always try to make myself available to talk if anyone needs someone to listen to regarding work or something personal. I communicate with my staff through daily meetings, personal check-ups, GroupMe announcements and direct messages. I hope to have created a welcoming environment where everyone and their opinions, achievements and struggles are safe.
Listen. Learn. Lead. Repeat.
​Junior year, I faced adversities with a less-than-motivated staff and reluctant seniors. Coming back from a "hide behind the screen, avoid the work" school year, it was difficult to get them to return to taking on a full workload. Additionally, some seniors had trouble following my lead as a less experienced junior. In order to gain my staff’s respect, I adopted the motto “Listen. Learn. Lead. Repeat.”
Listen. You cannot learn anything until you listen. This meant my staff must respect and listen to me as I equally take the time to respect and listen to them. In our staff meetings, we intentionally discuss everyone's wants, needs, ideas and concerns. During those meetings, we look for ways to improve as individuals and then ultimately as a team. I do my best to always take time to intentionally show my staff that I value each and every one of their voices.
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Learn. Through clear communication, we are able to understand each other and know how to help one another. It is important to learn new skills from others, but also just as important to learn others’ needs and how you can support them. Some people enjoy learning by diving right in while others prefer to be guided step by step. Learning more about each other enables us to learn more from each other. Personally, I accepted the fact that I still had a lot to learn, and my staff accepted the fact that I was chosen as editor-in-chief for a reason.
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Lead. When I was younger, I had to learn the difference between being a boss and being a leader. Simply put, a boss is served by others while a leader serves others. As one of many leaders guiding The Crimson Crier, I manage the class, confront any concerns or issues head-on, work to make dreams done and prioritize encouraging my staff to achieve excellence in our staff collaboration and publication.
Repeat. It was not until the 2022 JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention and the sessions I attended, I was exposed to other newspaper staffs and systems. I was thrilled to bring back all I had learned and implement it with my staff. The journey of overcoming the challenges that came with becoming Editor-in-Chief led me to establish this motto. I hope to continue to live by it for the rest of my life. Every day is an opportunity for me to listen to others, learn from others, and lead others.
Budget Meetings
In preparation for every magazine, I lead a budget meeting to collect each staff member’s three prepared story ideas. While sharing ideas with the whole staff may seem intimidating, it allows the rest of the class to be inspired by or build off of the ideas. Within seconds, an uncertain idea can become a complete story with the input of a few other staff members. I always encourage them to offer as many ideas as possible because you never know where the simple idea may lead.
After I organized all of the ideas, they list the top three stories they want to write. I do my best to allow them to write about their interests so they can do their best work. When assigning stories, I consider their top three, their work ethic and their skill strengths.
Once assigned, to keep up with everyone’s workflow, we have a spreadsheet they update to mark their progress. It contains all of the stages and materials required to completely lay out a magazine story. I adapted previous years’ budget spreadsheet by including tabs to keep track of graphics and layout progress, not just the writing process.
Email to In-Person
Even before I stepped into the newsroom for the first time in 2020, we were taught to interview with video calls and emails. It was not until later that fall we began to meet in person. Even then, only half of the class would be present. The following two years were a learning curve for each and every one of us. While some sources responded well to emails, I knew I had to get my staff, and myself, experienced with in-person, real-world interviews. Knowing this, I came up with an activity to help my staff practice.
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One day when our advisor was absent, I took the opportunity to lead a get-to-know-you interview activity. I had everyone randomly paired up. Together, they prepared only a few interview questions before they dove right into asking each other questions and finding something interesting about the other person to explore. I walked around helping anyone that was stuck, assisted in formulating interview questions and provided guiding pointers. In the end, we discussed things they learned and things they struggled with. This activity not only developed their interviewing skills but also developed their relationships with their fellow staff.
Making Accommodations
Learning Adobe InDesign is understandably a huge learning curve for our starting reporters. In order to accommodate my staff and their unfamiliarity with InDesign, over the summer I created an entirely new and improved Design Guide. Not only does it contain all of the formatting, but several technical and creative tips and tricks to guide them along the way. This not only relieves stress for those uncomfortable with InDesign but also allows more experienced designers to focus on their work than try to break down all that is InDesign for a beginner.
Editorializing is also a struggle for my staff. It is a journalistic writing-specific concept that some people have trouble grasping. Using my acquired knowledge, I made notes to define what editorializing is and how to avoid it.
Before
After
Staff Spirit
I believe hosting an occasional relaxing movie day or friendly competition keeps the workdays from becoming mundane and tiresome. They also prove to help the staff destress and rejuvenate motivation after a long work week.
Something else that always seems to boost staff spirit is designing annual staff shirts. We love to wear them to competitions and our holiday parties. We host an annual Staffsgiving full of food and thankfulness. For Christmas this year, we did Thrifty Santa instead of Dirty Santa where you bring thrift store-worthy clutter from your house as a gift instead of buying a gift.
Accomplishments
I am so honored and proud to be a part of The Crimson Crier and lead the staff that made Crimson Crier history. Our November 2022 magazine placed third for Best of Show at the JEA / NSPA Convention. That is the highest The Crimson Crier has ever placed in all of its 20 plus years of reporting. We also received a Gold Crown Award from Columbia Scholastic Press Association this year for the first time since 2014.
I am an over achiever constantly striving for excellence for myself and my staff. I am so proud of my staff for enduring the plentiful edits, pushing deadlines and creatively stretching designs. While I know it is easy to get discouraged after getting a story back with a storm of edits, I remind them why the edits are there – not to scrutinize, but strengthen.
