leadership:
staff dynamics
Before I was EIC, I was opinion/views editor, but I was also the unofficial leader of design. I designed all the covers of the magazine, so I was in charge of establishing color schemes and specialized fonts. Additionally, I was already the staff member most familiar with operating InDesign, so staff members often came to me if they needed help.
On deadline day for the December 2023 issue of The Claw, I was in the journalism room after school, going through the spreads to do final checks on design and make sure they were ready to export. As I was clicking through InDesign documents, I came upon the page you see to the left, except it was half empty. The writer assigned to that story hadn't written nearly enough to fill the page, and the design was haphazard.
When one member of a staff fails to complete their work on time, it can delay an entire issue. This particular staff member repeatedly produced unfinished work throughout the year. Determined not to let it delay our publication, I told my advisor I'd have a new piece ready to replace it by the end of the night.
The unfinished piece was about dance team, but they weren't practicing that afternoon, so I couldn't get interviews. Luckily, the cheer team was doing a photoshoot in preparation for their season, and they were hot off of a second-place state performance the year prior, so a season preview was appropriate.
I entered the gym and interviewed the cheer coach, then waited about an hour for the cheerleaders to emerge from the locker room and quickly interviewed a few as they left the building. I wrote the story in less than an hour and redesigned the page. After everything, The Claw was sent to the printer on time. What you see to the left is the finished product.
Click on the photo for a PDF version.
This might be controversial, but I've also made it quite clear since the summer that if any staff member feels they are unable to fulfill the demands of AJC, they should drop the class. I don't say that to be discouraging or pessimistic. I say it to make it clear that I will not look at anyone who chooses to drop with anger or condemnation. I say it to let them know that I believe it's a respectful and mature decision to bow out instead of dragging down an issue of The Claw due to being unable to complete the work.
Setting that boundary firmly has been one of the focuses of my leadership, and it comes from my personal experience with being the person who has to drop everything last-minute to come to the rescue of the magazine. That experience taught me a lot, yes, but I don't wish it on any of the writers around me.
I've balanced that serious boundary with a tone of positivity in other areas of my leadership. I joke with my staff in our group chat and make sure they know they're appreciated. I edit as much of their work as I can and help them with design questions whenever they need me. I try to push them to write stories outside of what their comfortable topics and work with them as they are in the process of exploring something new.
I think part of being a leader is stepping in where others fail. That night and a few others like it throughout the year were stressful and exhausting. Doing someone else's work was upsetting. Not being able to trust a staff member to uphold their commitments was disheartening. But writing that story as the seconds to deadline ticked away taught me that I'm the kind of student journalist with the determination to make sure an issue gets published on time no matter what. It taught me that I'm the kind of student journalist who can come up with questions on the spot and write quickly to make a story come together under pressure.
My experiences with staff demotivation last year informed the way I lead my staff this year. Before the school year even started, I reached out the incoming members of AJC to establish expectations and prepare them for the class/staff they were joining. I figured that if they knew what they were going into, they'd be able to prepare themselves and make space in their lives for this class. Only two staff members, myself and the web editor, were AJC returners this year. Everyone else was about to experience it for the first time. I put together this document to explain what the class is and what would be expected of its members -->
leadership:
editing
In order to distribute work more clearly, I also prompted my advisor to rethink the way editor positions work. Previously, the role of a section editor was kind of whatever that editor wanted it to be. This year, Mrs. Thrun and I decided that section editors needed to be reminded of their responsibility to edit the stories in their section and pay special attention to maintaining diverse, fresh coverage in that section when the staff is putting together a weekly budget or Claw budget. Refining the chain of command has been helpful to me as editor-in-chief this year. I know I can depend on the section editors to catch the mistakes I will inevitably sometimes miss.
I tend to forget how much I enjoy editing because I'm always in a rush to produce another article. But looking back, some of my best memories from AJC have been sitting with fellow writers, looking at work together and offering suggestions. Every Wednesday during class, we have "writing group." We gather in small groups of three or four and revise each other's stories for the news site that week. This means that a lot of the feedback I give my peers is verbal. A couple samples of my written edits, however, are featured below. My editing style is extremely informal, but I've found my peers understand it better this way. I apologize that these are slightly blurry!
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Find Izzy's final op-ed here
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Find Kaela's final review here
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leadership:
self-improvement
I've said multiple times in this portfolio that writing is the basis upon which every other journalistic element rests. In line with that idea, I believe the reason I have the privilege of leading my staff is because I showed my advisor I was committed to becoming a better writer every day -- that I'd work hard to put out work that exudes excellence. And my pursuit of that goal didn't end when I earned this position.
Part of becoming better means giving my pieces to other people to critique. Just as important, however, is diving into my past work to explore areas in which I must improve. Luckily, in AJC, I get the chance to do that at the end of every semester when my classmates and I are assigned portfolio revisions as our final exam. We're encouraged to go beyond surface level edits and find areas that require deep revision, to tear our work apart before putting it back together and to write reflections on what our articles were lacking. I've included my favorite of the portfolios I've put together to the right.
Click on the image to open the portfolio.
