In our last couple of blogs, we talked about the upcoming journalism convention in Minneapolis. As part of the convention, school papers can submit their websites as well as their print newspaper to be judged at the convention. At the end of the convention, the top 10 in each category are announced and it is a great honor to be ranked as one of the top 10 papers in the nation.

Sarah speaking: Last year, after having only been launched for a few months, our website took 10th place in its category at the journalism convention at Kansas City. Since then, I have made a sort of goal to myself to try to beat last year’s placing. Our website this year has a great number of new additions. In the past we had only a few tabs, but now we have enough content to fill the website. Nine blogs post weekly, our photo tab allows us to feature photos easily and our new sports center tab shows sports scores and player profiles. We also embeded social media onto the site and made contacting our staff easier for viewers. Most importantly, we now post multiple things daily to the site. Last year we posted about once a week. Getting to this point hasn’t always been easy. We use a day system to keep content updated, meaning each person on staff posts something in a specific category on their day each week. Many staff members turn their stories in on time. The others who don’t are sometimes difficult to motivate. Managing a sports schedule has also proved difficult. On the other hand, the website became a clear branch of our paper this year and will no longer be an after thought in the future. I for one, can’t wait for the convention.

Jill speaking:

While the website is definitely Sarah’s forte, I am very proud of the progress it has been making this year.  She is a whiz at the site and always seems to know what’s going on. The hard work has definitely paid off as I think the website looks amazing this year and have received several compliments on it from various people around the school. I hope the judges at the convention can also see the hard work that has gone into the website and will recognize that. Along with the website, we are submitting our actual newspaper for judging as well. Our newspaper has always done really well in the competition, even though we are often competing with glossy, 30-page magazines.  I think our paper this year looks even better than it has in years past thanks to the dedication of our staff members so I am especially excited to see how the paper does this year in competition.  I think we have made ourselves very reader friendly, and have also worked to make our designs that much more appealing. I have a feeling we are going to come back from the convention especially proud of our paper and website, knock on wood.

Lesson of the week:

1. It’s fun to show off your hard work and get actual recognition for your efforts. We look forward to doing so.

Lesson 13 of being an editor-in-chief: Check.

Countdown to Minneapolis: 3 days.