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Leadership
Posing with my fellow editors-in-chief, Madeline and Claudia, at the JEA National Journalism Conference in Chicago.
"The Generator" has three editors-in-chief. I serve as the design editor while the other two edit stories. The three of us run our Newspaper class under the direction of our adviser, Mrs. Campion. We run Story Idea Day, decide deadlines, make assignments and work one-on-one with our staffers. My role as design editor is to make the covers and index, plan where stories will be placed, design stories and spreads, take pictures and make graphics. Every month after we assign stories, I make the pages in InDesign and map out how much space everyone gets. From there, I make InDesign documents the exact size of the story for the writer to design on. Everyone designs their own stories, although sometimes this design may get tweaked or changed by me before being sent to print. As editor, I have a hand in everyone's designs and work with them to turn their inspiration into a reality. Since I will be graduating this year, I want everyone play around in InDesign as much as possible and teach them what I can so they feel prepared to tackle designing next year. My main focus this year was teaching and encouraging rather than doing the work for them so that they come out of this class with a new skill set and better understanding of the principles of design.
Staffer of the Month
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This year we wanted to do something to increase morale and motivate "The Generator" staff, so we came up with staffer of the month. After every edition, we select one person who either went above and beyond what was expected of them, or who we saw make major improvements in their design or writing. Before we begin a new edition, we start class by announcing the staffer of the month and highlight their achievements for the whole staff to hear. We then hang up their award on the cork board as a visual celebration and recognition to drive innovation and personal achievement.
Google Drive
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We use Google Drive to organize our entire paper through a shared drive. Each month has a folder and within that are folders for our staff to submit their story ideas, rough drafts, design inspiration, final drafts and photos, so that the other editors and I can look at and edit them. We also have a master spreadsheet for each edition where we keep track of who turned in what and keep track of deadlines to stay organized. Using Google Drive is great because we can make suggestions and edits without actually changing the story from any device, anywhere. Because news is always changing, we use the same programs as a real newsroom so that we can collaborate and make changes in real time.
Calendar
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One aspect I noticed we struggled with my first year as an editor was deadlines and keeping them organized. To solve this problem, I drew inspiration from the internet to create a giant wall calendar using duct tape. We found this to be very helpful for keeping track of dates and to be a constant visual reminder of upcoming deadlines.
Teaching New Staffers​
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This school year, our staff had a large number of new staffers who needed help learning the ropes in journalism. As editors, we spent the first few weeks of the year making and presenting PowerPoint on how to come up with and write stories, design stories, etc. I also gave in-depth InDesign tutorials over the projector for the class to follow to get the new journalists-in-the-making comfortable with using InDesign.
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