News Gathering
News gathering is the most crucial step in journalism, especially from an editorial perspective. Presiding over 60-100 page editions six times a year, it can become disastrous to manage the content that comes in from our reporters, especially when trying to organize which articles can fit into our themed section. Our four person print editorial team has developed an efficient way to keep track of the content coming in and the associated designs. For my personal articles, I have mastered a effective way of contacting sources after meticulous trial and error. Read more about each strategy!
Staff News Gathering
Trying to organize 60-100 pages editions can be incredibly stressful, especially when it encroaches on a strict deadline. However, to manage some of the stress, my peers and I swear by our trusty bulletin board. With duct tape mimicking pages, our bulletin board is sectioned into 60 spots. Before production for each edition, we have staff members in either journalism class take an index card. On this they indicate their name, the title of their story and the section it goes in. We have them make multiple cards in accordance with the number of pages in the magazine they anticipate using. From there, my three co-editors and I get together to lay out the cards in our desired order. To keep cohesion throughout each edition, we try to keep the general organization of each section the same: news, then sports, then features, then our theme section, then opinion, then constants and back of the book content.
However, our last edition of the 2019-2020 school year, which is traditionally our Senior Edition, posed an unusual challenge. Due to classes being moved to a virtual, at-home setting, we had to produce our annual homage to our seniors remotely. And although we were able to put together our largest edition yet, we were left without our trusted bulletin board. We then resorted to Google Sheets to monitor which staff members were covering specific content. We also had weekly Monday meetings via Zoom; in this time, we brainstormed content ideas for the seniors, bringing back some of our traditions like the Senior Map, but also devising new ideas that fit the current situation.
Although designing an entire student-run magazine from home is challenging in and of itself, we decided that the unprecedented situation provided us with a unique opportunity: we had the chance to feature as many seniors in our Senior Profiles as possible. Our Senior Edition usually highlights a handful of graduating seniors reflecting on their high school experience paired with a silly photo of them in our journalism classroom. However, this year, we conducted interview over Zoom and utilized the senior photos each student took. To keep track of which seniors had been interviewed, and to make sure as many were being featured as possible, we created yet another spread sheet with the names of every student in the class of 2020. We made sure each senior that wanted to was interviewed, and we encouraged our staff members to link the Google Doc to the quote. This way we could keep track of who was being interviewed and which quotes were done and edited.
The 2020-2021 school year, however, has already proven to be drastically different than last. While the majority of our school year is expected be completed online, the challenges of putting together editions remotely has become the norm. We have already put together two editions this school year, one with theme of health and the other with politics. Both editions have been over 100 pages, and to keep track of content, we have fallen back on using Google Spreadsheets. We utilize one master sheet titled "The Newsroom," and this document has individual tabs at the bottom corresponding with each section of our publication. For example, pictured left is a screenshot of the tab for the third edition of our magazine. For tab, the spreadsheet is further organized into sections, such as features, news and opinion. This is where we keep track of not only content, but editing as well.
Personal News Gathering
My personal news gathering approach starts through conversation. I usually bring my ideas surrounding articles, or general topics of inquiry, up to my advisor, co-editors and staff members. This way, I am able to articulate my angle for the story to them and to see if they know of any potential sources. I try to do secondary research before hand. This way, I am able to conjure sources and any holes in the reporting that I come across. I usually try to reach out to community organizations for interviews and sources. Even when I am uncertain that the organization or person that I want to interview will respond, I always contact them. This way, I am able to include that they declined to be interviewed in the story, or I am able to get their perspective if they reply. Every time I interview someone, I try to ask if they know of any other people who could or would be willing to talk about the matter we are discussing. Through journalism, I have developed a network of contacts in my community, most of which would otherwise be complete strangers. On my most recent story surrounding Black Lives Matter protests within my community, I contacted our local Sheriff to comment on an incident involving some of his deputies. To our surprise, he was able to schedule a meeting with us. Furthermore, in lieu of racist comments that went viral in the neighboring town of Saline, Mich., we contacted the Saline High School principal to comment on the issue. We specifically said we would consider no response within 48 hours a declination to comment on the issue. Because he didn't respond, we specifically stated that in our article.
Usually after conducting interviews, I transcribe the conversation to pull out the most important parts of the interview that I may have missed or forgotten about. This way, I can find specific gaps within an interview that may require follow up questions. Additionally, transcribing allows me to annotate the interview and pull out direct quotes or material to be paraphrased. This is the step I take right before writing that allows me to create a skeletal outline of my piece.
