The Process.
In my time as Editor in Chief of the Tribal Tribune, for each monthly issue of the paper, I followed a specific process of how I led the staff and produce the issue.
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First, I conducted what we call "story circle," which involves everyone on staff -- writers, designers, photographers and editors -- to collaborate and pitch story ideas that we wanted to cover in the paper and on the website. To the left is the story spreadsheet for Feb and March 2020, which I formatted and kept up to date. All editors had access to this sheet, but I added to it with every story circle. We did story circle for about a week before main production begins. To see the full spreadsheet, scroll from right to left and top to bottom.
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Secondly, the editorial board configured the "backroom board" with the stories we chose form the story spreadsheet. Here, we assigned pages to designers and photographers and organized the exact places the stories are going. This back board process took two to three days, a lot of arguing and a lot of rewriting and reconfiguration. After this step is completed, the paper is ready to be made.
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Thirdly, I, along with the writing editors, edited the rough drafts of the stories on the writing drive that my other co-editor in chief and I set up at the beginning of the year. We edited the stories to get the final drafts sent back to us in the next two days.
The document to the left is the rough draft of a story that Rosemary Delameter wrote before editing. The document to the right is after I have edited the story. My edits are in red. |
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Next, I worked with designers to draw up what we call "maestros" which is where they sketched each page the way they want it to look like and communicated with the corresponding writer and photographer on each page. This was an essential step in the process because it gave the designers an outline of what they needed to get for the page and put them at a place to start before all the stories or photos are in. |
In the next week or so, we worked on pages and stories in class, sending staffers out to get information as we needed it. In this process, we held two press nights, one work night and a send off night. Staffers, designers and editors stayed after school from 4:00 p.m. to about 10:00 p.m. This was really where the majority of the work gets done, especially when we had larger special sections with many graphics and important stories. On send off night, I was the one that saves and exports every page to the server with the Post and Courier to be printed. I approved most if not all the pages before they are to be printed. |
On the same day that we distribute the paper, I led the "postmortem" session of dissecting the paper . We looked for design mistakes, names spelled wrong or any little nit-picky thing that could have been changed or improved this issue. We then put the issue up on the website and keep a log of what we need to fix for next time.
Lastly, I upheld the long-standing tradition of "The Paper Plate Awards". The staff was ready and deserving of a break from the hectic schedule of producing a newspaper, so the editor board prepared the awards and recognizes those staffers that put in extra time and care to create our exceptional publication. Making a day of giving praise and letting off a little steam was really fun for all parties involved. After the issue is completely over, we put the desks back into a circle and start the process all over again.
This past summer, I participated in the 2019 Al Neuharth Free Spirit Conference which selects 51 student journalists, one from each state, out of a pool of applicants to participate in a 6-day-long conference to connect with other student journalists, learn from professionals in the field, and prepare for a career in journalism. I was able to represent my state and my high school in the presence of Pulitzer prize-winning journalists and experience the D.C. career atmosphere for the first time. I learned so much from this conference and was able to exchange knowledge and practices on how I run the paper at home with so many other student journalists. To this day, I receive up to 100 messages a day from the 50 other scholars about current events, questions about their own publications, and continue to form bonds that will last a lifetime. This experience was extremely formative in my journalism aspirations and shaped a goal for me to look towards.
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This is after I taught my first journalism class at SIPA 2019. My adviser, Tamela Watkins, staff writer (Ted Fairchild), and I taught a class about finding an angle and covering pressing and important topics. We were able to talk about previous experiences and help other student journalists answer the questions that they had about specific topics and stories they were covering. This experience helped me to get in touch with other student journalists and learn about their concerns and ideas as well as push me to speak publicly in a ballroom of my peers. I taught another class at the 2020 SIPA convention as well. |
To the right is a document that I wrote to go in a handbook for the new staffers at the beginning of the year. The purpose if this was to coincide with what we call "bootcamp" (a two-three week period at the beginning of the year to train and teach new staffers about journalism) and act as a codified version of the lessons. I planned a schedule and curriculum for this year's bootcamp with the guidance of my adviser that taught journalism basics and ethics as well as how to write a review, what to look for in an environmental portrait and what the vocabulary that they might use or hear in the backroom when designing pages. In those first few weeks, I worked closely with the new staffers helping them in any way that they needed. |
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