● National Student Journalist of the Year Runner-Up ●
My Portfolio: Leadership & Team Building
When I became The Spoke's Editor-in-Chief, I entered a whole new world. My advisers and the Editors-in-Chief before me selected me to be the sole leader of the paper — the first time in 14 years that only one person held the title. On top of that, I was running the largest newsroom in the paper's more than 70 years of existence. I had countless ideas for The Spoke. Some failed brutally, but others worked perfectly.
Update as of March 12, 2024: I am proud to announce that the Pennsylvania School Press Association named The Spoke the 2024 Clyde F. Lyttle All-State Newspaper, a title presented to the top high school newspaper in the state.
The Largest Staff in Spoke History
This was the year The Spoke's staff size surpassed the number 60. Since I was a freshman, the paper has grown exponentially: what started as a few students putting a paper together in a closet-sized room has led to a group that now needs to reserve a large meeting room to simply fit in the same space. The increasing staff size has come with some challenges — greater difficulty in providing one-on-one feedback, and at times, a disconnected community. However, it has also brought its strengths — most notably, a larger workforce to cover more events and produce content more efficiently.
Covering School Board Meetings
When I was News Editor, I made it official: everyone must attend and report on two school board meetings throughout the school year. It didn't matter when, didn't matter which ones: as long as at least one Spoke reporter was at every meeting, we were fulfilling our job.
Throughout the course of the year, as the school board met, reporters would submit their notes to me to let me know what happened at the meetings. This ensured we could keep our eyes out for any interesting public comment, anything to report on immediately or any story ideas to put in our reserves for the future.
This helped The Spoke fulfill one of its primary duties as a news organization: acting as a check on the government. School board members now know to expect at least one Spoke member at every meeting — a subtle, but powerful message the paper is sending to the community. We are here, we are community members and stakeholders, and we will not be afraid to tell our readership what happens tonight.
Covering Sports Games
While the prospect of running a newsroom of more than 60 people terrified me at first, over time, I learned how it could work to my — and The Spoke's — benefit.
In addition to their two required school board meetings, reporters must also attend two home sports games per season for the paper. What this leads to is better, more thorough and representative coverage of every school sport. Now, The Spoke consistently publishes content from every home sports game, regardless of gender or the "prestige" of the sport.
I tell reporters how going to sports games and reporting live from the scene of the news can teach them more than a week in class could: with journalism, practice is the most valuable teacher. At one of my early football games, I stood too close to the field and was tackled while looking through my viewfinder. Now, I'm a lot more perceptive. Some of my best memories from my time at The Spoke are reporting from sports games.
Teaching Class
As Editor-in-Chief, I'm not just the final set of eyes on the paper before we go to print. I am also the "teacher" of The Spoke. Unlike many other high school newspapers, the whole staff of The Spoke meets during the school day as a co-curricular. On top of attending my own set of classes periods 1-7, I lead Spoke class during 8th period, planning lessons and delivering presentations.
Stepping into my role this school year, I knew one of my top priorities was teaching new reporters everything there is to know about journalism — or at least, everything I know about journalism.
Here are some of the presentations I have delivered to The Spoke's staff.
I led a seminar-type discussion period about various ethical case studies in journalism. I introduced ethical dilemmas and unpacked some other newspaper's decisions.
The Web Flow
Covering more school board meetings and sports games is great. But it requires a lot more work on the back end for editors. Knowing this, over the summer I designed, tested and rolled out The Spoke's web flow, the plan for how we were going to capitalize on our increased reporting this year. As a plus, this plan helped me delegate some work to the other editors. You can view the whole plan to the right. Here are the highlights:
Overview:
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All reporters sign up to cover two sports games a season
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They will bring a camera, somewhere/something to take notes on/with and their press pass
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Reporters know that their duties during and after the game including producing live coverage as well as uploading their best photos and a brief within four hours of the game's start
What the editors do:
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4 hours post-game: The reporters submit their brief and photos and notify the Web Copy and Photography editors
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4 hours + 30 minutes post-game: These editors review and edit the text and create a photo gallery
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4 hours + 60 minutes post-game: The Web Managing Editor approves the article and photos
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4 hours + 90 minutes post-game: The Webmaster and Social Media Editor post to The Spoke's website and social media accounts
This process has worked incredibly effectively this year. It ensures that we post content in a timely fashion while also dividing the work. Best, this process runs itself: like the best leaders, I no longer have to involve myself — it just happens.
Leading the Editorial Board
"Just Call Me!"
The whole Spoke staff meets during 8th period half of the school days. The other half of the days, the Editorial Board meets independently. On our first "Editor Day" this year, I set some ground rules with the editors — the biggest was ensuring open communication.
I make it a point to check my phone regularly and reply to messages as soon as possible, especially when they are about The Spoke. I asked the rest of the Editorial Board to meet me halfway: as long as it's a reasonable hour, if I reach out with a question, I expect a quick response.
I also told the Editorial Board that, if there's an issue, an urgent matter or any other reason why I need to step into Spoke mode, they can always call me — no matter what time of day. News is a 24/7 business. If we need to report on something or if a major problem arises, I don't care that it's 2 a.m. I have a job to do.
My Presence at Production
Everyone has a job at Production. Whether it's making pages, choosing pictures, creating designs or editing copy, there's more than enough work to go around. Me, though? I'm a floater. I do laps around the room, checking in on everyone and helping out with problems that arise.
The Editorial Board uses Trello as a communal workspace to store, edit and track our pages. As Editor-in-Chief, one of my biggest production-time goals was streamlining our editing process. This year, I implemented a very simple checklist system: once a section editor receives and makes an editor or adviser's comments on their page, they check their name off. To the left, you can see the checklist we use to track the edits and revisions through which every page has gone.
This system helps ensure that no one overlooks a page. I am proud to report that within the four print issues The Spoke has published so far this year, we have only made two minor errors that we had to publically correct — a substantial reduction from past years.
The Spoke's PDFs Trello Board on which we track who has edited each page and leave comments for each other if we notice an error on any page.
Bringing the Staff Together
Creating Staff Bios
A simple yet effective change I implemented this year was having every staff member and editor create a staff bio to publish on our website. A good newspaper interacts with the community. For me, that looks like introducing The Spoke's staff as people, not just faceless reporters.
Editors Secret Santa
Every good team needs some fun to balance out the hard work. Before we went on winter break this year, I organized a Secret Santa gift exchange among the 22 members of the Editorial Board and three advisers.
The presents I received this year included two journalism-related mugs: one from the Student Press Law Center listing the monumental U.S. Supreme Court cases affirming First Amendment rights for student journalists and one that reads "May I quote you on that?" My Secret Santa knew me so well.
Yes, receiving gifts was a perk (I mean, who doesn't love a cheesy mug?), but the team-building and genuine fun the Secret Santa created was more important. We work better with those we see not only as an editor but as a friend too.