Editing, Leadership, and Team Building
It takes an immense amount of work to produce a newspaper, especially for full-time students whose time for journalism competes with six other classes and an ever-growing number of extracurriculars and sports. As Executive Editor for The Little Hawk, it is my responsibility to make sure that everyone does their job and works well together.
The Little Hawk would be impossible without the power of collaboration. At the beginning of every cycle, we talk about the design for the next issue—how many page spreads will News get, or Sports, or Opinion? I lead everyone through what the plan is, then it's up to the section editors to make sure that they have enough stories to fill up their assigned pages.
We spend hours and hours working on the newspaper; students who pick up a copy in the foyer don't know how much work goes on behind the scenes. There's always a million problems for me to solve—either someone missed a volleyball game or an editor doesn't know how to design pages. It’s okay! I’ve got it handled! Shortly before our due date, we have Work Night, where we hang out for four hours and cram to finish page designs with our mouths stuffed full of pepperoni pizza and M&Ms.
The work we put in as a team becomes tangible when we get copies of our newspapers from the printing company. All of the effort we put in—taking photos at football games, writing feature profiles on jazz saxophonists, designing page spreads on recent school board elections—is finally realized when I open the crackling newspaper and take in the words that my team and I have written.
Editing
Story Tracker
Our paper cycle begins with the Story Tracker. Reporters write down what stories they're writing in each section, and there are areas for editors to mark off whether it's been edited, published, or in progress. Our goal is always to have five stories done by the end of the cycle—it's a little bit ambitious!
Google Docs
If I'm honest, I'm a little bit of an overzealous editor. If a reporter asks me to edit a story they wrote, you can almost guarantee that I'll leave about 60 comments on it.
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I heavily utilize the "suggestions" mode in Google Docs. Here, I'll make small grammar or sentence structure changes without having to actually edit the article before the reporter is able to review my edits. I believe that the job of an editor isn't just to polish a journalist's work, but also to make sure that they learn from their mistakes so that they don't make them in the future. So, I always explain why I make the changes that I make, even if it's just a small grammar correction.
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Throughout the last two years (last year I was an opinion editor, this year I am the feature/exec editor), I've learned a lot about editing other peoples' work. Now that I have a "formula" for editing—make changes, explain them, don't let them happen again—I'm able to edit stories a lot faster while still giving them the same level of attention.
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It's also important to me that reporters think deeply about the topic that they're writing about. If I see a different angle or know additional information, I will make a note about it.
Page Ladder
Each cycle, I write the page ladder on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. It includes each page, the section, and the editor assigned to design it. I usually leave the specific stories featured on each page up to the editor to decide, but I ask them to add the headlines to the page ladder so we know which stories will be on each page.
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In previous years, we've used a digital page ladder—either on Google Docs or Google Sheets. However, I've found that the physical page ladder is more helpful, because it's easy to glance at, hard to forget about, and more accessible.
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Forgive me for my poor penmanship. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.
Leadership
As the only executive editor this year, I've struggled leading my team. We're split into two class sections, so it's hard to find time for us to come together and discuss what has to get done for the paper to be successful. Despite the challenges, we've published two issues with a third in the works.
Wednesday Editor Meetings
This year, we've started having weekly editor meetings. On Wednesdays, I gather the editorial board to discuss issues that we need to solve as a group. At the beginning of a paper cycle, I'll go over which pages each section is assigned, what the deadline is, and when Work Night is. I've also reinstated voting on the staff editorial topic—first, we'll have a conversation on what our personal perspectives are, then we'll take a vote to decide what position the staff ed will take. This cycle, we're writing a staff ed about the school board's possible decision on a full personal electronics ban, so during our Wednesday meeting, we discussed whether we were for or against a full ban. Editors who were for the ban tried to convince everyone else that it was a good idea, and vice versa.
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If I have a specific concern, I'll also usually bring it up during our Wednesday meeting. Earlier this year, there was a concern about students using generative AI to write news articles, so I had to develop a policy regarding AI usage. During our staff meeting, we discussed the wording of the policy and voted to codify it, as per the staff manual.
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After our meeting, I will send out an email with my notes outlining what we discussed to the editorial board. I do this so that people who weren't able to attend still know what happened, but also so editors who were present don't forget what we talked about.
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Last year, the editorial board got together rarely, if ever, so having a designated time on a regular basis for all editors to meet has been incredibly helpful. Since we're split between two different class periods, it also helps us stay on the same page.
IHSPA Student Journalism Conference
For the past two years, I've given a presentation on student leadership at the IHSPA Fall Journalism Conference with other Little Hawk editors. We cover topics we think that all student editors should know when leading a newspaper or yearbook team: culture, roles of each person on staff, expectations, and motivation, among other things.
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This opportunity has allowed me to share what I know and have learned through my own personal experience with a wider group of student editors. It's especially important for me to present to other student leaders, because I, as a peer, have a specific viewpoint that I share with other high school newspaper editors. ​
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This year, I decided to revamp the slideshow that we use for the presentation. I still kept much of the old information, but I wanted to add a section on key resources—such as a staff manual and policies that we think are especially important to include—and a section on how The Little Hawk goes from Idea to Print. Also, I really didn't need we needed that many slides on motivational books none of us had actually read.
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It was successful! During our presentation, I asked the group if their publications all had staff manuals. To my surprise, many of their programs didn't, which led to a conversation on why a staff manual is especially important. Without clear policies in place, it's hard to distinguish right from wrong, especially when you're leading your own peers.
Training New Editors
On The Little Hawk, we have several assistant editors. It's my job, as well as the job of the individual section editors, to teach the assistants how to design pages using InDesign. InDesign has a massive learning curve, which means that I will usually only give an assistant editor one or two pages their first time using it. I work with them to make sure that they know what the specific style requirements are—like headlines in Adobe Garamond Pro or 10 point body text—and teach them how to change photos from RGB to CMYK.
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Additionally, It will me my job to select next year's editorial board in the spring. I will interview prospective editors, choose who fits each position the best, and make sure that they can handle the workload required. In May, we usually have the incoming staff design the newspaper, which allows graduating seniors the ability to help them with organization and design while also relinquishing their responsibilities. The May/June issue serves as a valuable transition between editorial boards.
Team Building
Work Night
We have at least one work night every print cycle. This is time where editors can come in to work on their page designs, reporters can finish their stories, and yearbookers can do whatever they do (I'm not sure what that is, exactly). Really, cramming for a deadline is the best team bonding activity possible. Everyone at work night knows that they're in the same position: they have pages due soon and even though they said that they've been working on their pages, they haven't started yet. We usually share pizza and snacks, and I help editors with their pages and edit stories.
Positivity Editors
This year, we've introduced "positivity editors." These honorary positions—they're not section editors, so they aren't members of the editorial board—encourage staff members during class to make sure that they remain on topic and engaged with the paper. Our positivity editors help bring up morale in the newsroom and serve as a lighthearted figures when we're swamped with deadlines.