To me, being Editor-in-Chief is about building relationships.
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When I'm in the newsroom, my motto is to never sit down. I'm always on my feet, working with the staff one-on-one or in groups. I'll float around design ideas, suggest interviewees, revise leads... Behind the scenes (i.e. outside of class time), I'll make curriculum plans, rewrite staff manuals, coordinate coverage and conduct the interviews for my own stories.
co-Editor-in-Chief of The Huron Emery 2019-20 / News Editor of The Huron Emery 2017-19
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Top: We bring all hands on deck when it comes to a designing the center spread for our special issue. Bottom left: For our mentorship groups, we made cards with candy and our contact info to build rapport between mentors and mentees. Bottom right: I'm never stationary in the computer lab, making my way to check in with all the writers and designers. Photos by Sara-Beth Badalamente
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NEWS EDITOR: MENTORSHIP TEAMS
I joined The Huron Emery's newsroom my sophomore year and was quickly promoted to news editor a few weeks in. One of the first things I noticed was the "transactional" nature of our news cycle. So I typed up pages of Staff and Editor's Norms, which I submitted to the then-Editor-in-Chief in an attempt to shift the conversation to one of radical candor and collaborative change. For one, I proposed building mentorship groups between new and more experienced staffers. We've since implemented and grown our mentorship teams to not only teach journalistic style but also notice our staffers' strengths, engage in peer review, play competitive games and more. Diversity and specialization Halfway through the my first year on staff, I recognized our news cycle had a lot of untapped potential. There is incredible diversity in our newsroom, both in terms of perspectives and skill level. Some students will attend every basketball game, and others are Photoshop and Illustrator wizards. Some students speak English as a second language, and others have IEPs. We have students from many cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The "specialization" process cultivated these talents and perspectives by allowing different requirements for different deadlines. This allowed us not only to allow staffers to make work that they prefer, but also increase consistently creative coverage across the board. I always tried my best to work with reporters, to help them cover issues to the best of their ability. |
I lead our class with formal lessons as well as activities like this True Colors Personality Quiz. The goal of the quiz was learn about the strengths of our team members. It developed into a productive conversation about expectations and effective communication. The activity was adopted for the yearbook staffs after we did it. Photos by Sara-Beth Badalamente
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: POLICYMAKER
Creating curriculum When I became Editor-in-Chief at the end of my junior year, I took charge at the front and back end of newspaper work. In Summer 2019, I planned out a curriculum for our new six-week newspaper class bootcamp with new activities like Instagram storytelling, beat reporting and various press conference briefs. I wrote rubrics and set up corresponding Trello boards (which is a new platform for us this year) for every assignment. Staff Manual I rewrote our staff manual to fit our newsroom's needs and best practices. |
Left: At first, we had some HDMI connection issues, but everything turned out fine! Photo by Mishal Charania
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: NATIONAL PRESENTER
Our Staff Manuals 101 presentation at the National High School Journalism Conference in D.C. was scheduled for 8 a.m. Saturday morning, so I wasn't expecting a crowd. Surprisingly, the room completely filled up and I had a blast outlining how to develop a unique staff culture with efficiency and intent. One adviser from Florida even came up to shake my hand after the talk! |
Top left: Last summer, we redesigned our paper's size, flag and font families to meet our reader's needs. Top right: Every Wednesday, the EICs make an agenda of the latest issues in reporting and fundraising to address. Bottom left: We got Panera catered for an especially busy editor's meeting. Bottom right: For the holidays, we EICs bought every editor personalized face masks and bookmarks. Photos by Sara-Beth Badalamente
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: UNITING EDITORS
This year, I added and trained a Social Media Editor, Copy Editor, Online Editor, Design Editor and Business Manager. Our staff has a very low retention rate since most students on staff are seniors who just want an English credit. I wanted our editorial board to more broadly reflect different grades, interests and concerns at our school. My co-Editor-in-Chief Sami and I also began the practice of weekly editor's meetings (Wednesdays at lunch). Our editors constantly collaborate with an active group chat and countless emails and calls where we constantly communicate with each other about best practices and expectations. We also have a lot of fun: for example, for the holidays, we EICs bought personalized face masks and bookmarks for the editors! |