charlieardengee
Editing, Leadership & Team Building
If you told freshman-year-me that I would be standing in front of a room of 32 staffers every day, leading an entire classroom, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Without the support I received from friends and trusted adults, I would never have gained the confidence I needed to carry out my duties as Co-Editor-in-Chief of our print publication.
One thing that I have learned from this is that anyone can be a leader with a little push, and I have used that as a guiding philosophy in my own leadership style.
Staff Motivation
Post-Online School
The first and largest challenge my Co-Editor-in-Chief and I faced was staff motivation following over a year of online school. We noticed that most returning staffers weren't sure about expectations for our deadlines, called rounds. Over the early days of the pandemic, past leadership had been less strict and more ambiguous with deadlines, leading to poorer-quality round submissions and later exporting.
This problem was exacerbated for new staffers because the people we usually rely on to help us train such a large staff also weren't sure what to do. We had to come up with multiple approaches over the year to target different staffers with different questions and different motivators.
Round Deadline Documents
Following multiple questions from new staffers about deadline expectations and noticing returning staffers weren't meeting them, I created this checklist with easy-to-follow steps.
This six-page-in-total document included real examples from a previous article of mine, Straight to the Point, to give staffers a visual representation of what drafts should look like.
I also created an alternate version detailing round guidelines for our cover story, a six-page investigative piece in each issue. My Co-EIC looked them over and made edits, and we gave it to staffers as a resource that we continuously referenced throughout the year.
Circle Discussion
As editors, it's important to be in touch with our staff to know how to best help them. In order to facilitate this connection, we decided to hold a circle discussion to get their opinions and perspectives on deadlines. Every person had a chance to speak without interruption in the circle format, a restorative justice practice, making it the perfect place to have difficult and honest discussions.
We asked staffers to share what difficulties they had meeting round deadlines and any ideas they had to fix this widespread issue. What could we as editors do to better help them? When tackling a problem, multiple heads are often better than one. It also was a perfect way to show staffers that all of them have the capabilities to be leaders and come up with innovative solutions.
From this discussion, my Co-EIC and I gained a multitude of new ideas to implement over the upcoming few cycles, including having deadlines on Mondays and having an extra deadline to go over outlines before the first round.
Communication
No good publication can function without good communication. In a discipline as teamwork-based as journalism, nothing would get done without it. That's why I knew I needed to set a good example, not only for section editors but our staff as a whole.
1.
Discord
We first began using Discord as communication for the print publication during the online school year. It worked so well that we both kept it this year and expanded it to our web and yearbook publications too. The "channel" system works perfectly so that we can distinguish publications, announcements, and places to have fun and talk amongst ourselves.
2.
Weekly Emails
In addition to the deadlines on our day-by-day calendar and announcements in the Discord, Hanah and I alternated every cycle sending out weekly emails so staffers could plan ahead and check-in with us.
3.
Editor
Transparency
Following staff comments asking for more transparency in decision-making, we reached out to section editors explaining out story idea choices and had the editorial board look over the ladder before its final release. Obviously there are still some decisions we have to make ourselves as EICs for the sake of time and ethics, but we have strived to be as open as we possibly can.
General Leadership
Roses & Thorns
Roses & Thorns is a long-held tradition at our paper that my Co-EIC and I continued and added our own adjustments to. After we export, we send out a form to staffers, having them list one positive and one negative for this cycle. In the past, editors have presented all of the roses and thorns, but Hanah and I realized that sometimes there are general problems we need to address as a class, and sometimes people had more individual problems that could be better-solved one-on-one. So, we sorted through common issues with the whole staff through our presentations and reached out to individuals to help with personal problems.
Exporting Checklist Changes
After the first cycle of the year, the EICs and Design editor team reconvened to make changes to the exporting checklist. We created less overall steps and sign offs; the former exporting checklist was designed around Zoom and didn't work as well in an in-person setting. We also found that so many steps for sign offs confused new staffers and ultimately didn't benefit the publication sufficiently because we would fixate on small unnoticable stylistic fixes.
Resources for Staff Members
Hanah and I made these two presentations to address two problems we saw in the newsroom: difficulty organizing the lengthy cover story and editors struggling with teaching new staffers.
Google Form Usage
Hanah and I established some new rules this year, aiming to send out fewer google forms for source ideas and stop sending surveys for school-specific data because they are difficult to collect in a way that is statistically sound. Here is an example of me explaining the new rules to a staffer.
Team Building
The journalism community has been such a safe space for me the past few years, and I wanted to help foster that feeling for others. Therefore, team building has been very important to me.
Staff Bonding Activities
In the slideshow above you'll find descriptions of the team building activities we have held. We've also had occasional Mentor-Mentee Mondays for first-year staffers to get to know their assigned journalism mentor, Tasty Tuesdays where staffers bring in baked goods, Time for Mindfulness Thursdays where we set aside a couple of minutes in class for mindfulness meditation, and a staff breakfast before school.
Fostering Leadership
Fellow staffer Katherine Shoppa and I attended an IHSPA session about leadership, and we both agreed that it would be a great lesson to take back to the staff. Having given many similar presentations in my time as EIC, I encouraged them to put together this activity for staffers to learn about leadership, giving them confidence in their own leadership skills. This was a great activity for showing staffers that everyone can be a leader.
Editing
Because of the way our publication is set up, it's hard to quantify the impact of my editing skills. We have all of our staffers make comments on multiple drafts of articles, so improvements in writing are not always directly correlated to me. After all, two (or 32) heads are better than one. However, here are some examples of comments I have made for our upcoming issue that have led to impactful changes and often more in-depth conversations with writers. These are the types of comments I prioritize leaving as Editor-in-Chief; other staffers and editors in the process often catch grammar or AP style mistakes, but sometimes don't see deeper issues, whether that be with ethicality or reader engagement.
Constructive criticism
For nearly every comment I make, I make sure to explain why it is I'm leaving that comment. This way, staffers can become better editors themselves later down the line. Plus, as a writer myself, I personally like to know what the reasoning behind comments are so I can accurately filter feedback and know how to fix them. Here is an example of constructive criticism. I tell the staffer what they did well (focusing on the sources role as an ombudsperson rather than a general profile about her life) and what they can do better (making it more engaging). Then, I give tips on how to do this.
Unique angles
For our cover story this cycle about how drug usage and the culture surrounding it has changed because of the pandemic, one source mentioned that police intervention ultimately doesn't help people suffering from addiction. I challenged the writers to think about why exactly police and prison don't help, thinking logically about their sources stories as well as asking them themselves. Then, reaching out to professionals to figure out how to accurately address the root of the problem.
Addressing specific concerns
Writers often leave comments for advice on sections they are unsure on, and I always try to address them. In this case, staffer Lillian Prochaska was unsure about this transition, so I gave my ideas.
Knowing our audience
With a controversial topic like taxing the rich, I advised staffer Katherine Shoppa to simplify the facts and change the tone in their opinion article to be more welcoming to people who may be wary of the idea at first, because those are the people they are writing the opinion for.
Ethics
Ethics have been especially important for working on the drug culture cover story, even more so because our student sources have been granted anonymity by the editorial board. We have to keep an eye out to avoid romanticization of drug usage as well as minimize harm. I reminded the writers to keep this in mind when a source mentioned specific names of 'new drugs' when referencing that the culture at our school has become focused on more and more intense substances.
Engaging ledes
I help staffers make their ledes as engaging and relevant as possible, because the lede is the first thing a reader sees and can make or break whether or not they read your story.
Innovative solutions
This news story about administrative changes in our building had multiple sections about each new update and was way over word count. I noticed one of their sections was already getting covered even more in-depth on our website, and thus found a creative fix to their problem.
Kindness is key
Obviously, being assertive and firm when you need to be is important in establishing your role as an editor and for ensuring things run smoothly as a publication. This is definitely a lesson I've had to learn to balance as a naturally passive person. However, I believe in giving credit where credit is due. I do my best to leave a comment about something staffers did well in their piece. I've found that this is not only a nice thing to do, but it boosts confidence and creates a welcoming environment on staff.
Staff Comments
Here's what fellow staff members say about me. I asked a fellow staffer whom I trust to conduct these short interviews to hopefully reduce bias.