This week we’ve had multiple reminders to try and make sure that we’re putting out the best paper that we can. Whether that comes from each other during our issue critique, the student body that’s still talking about last issue, or our administrators, the input comes from everywhere.

Sarah speaking:

In the aftermath of our last issue, I think Jill and I are realizing more and more the impact our paper has on the students at the school. Seeing reader interaction at an all time high, has shown us our influence. Students are definitely reading our paper, or at least reading our headlines. Realizing this, makes deciding content weigh even more heavily in my mind. Jill and I lead story ideas ever month and often nix ideas we feel are not newsworthy or valuable to students. The both of us spend time outside of class to continue the discussion of content and decide what should be published each month. Sometimes what is published isn’t necessarily feel good content, but Jill and I certainly strive to ensure it is valuable for students. On the other hand, much of our content is very positive. We don’t necessarily strive to balance stories according to how positive or negative they are, but we are careful not to confuse publishing a story for shock value, versus publishing a story that is shocking, but worth telling. I know we will continue to push staff members to keep these issues in mind when they propose story ideas and write articles. This week might be a good time to refresh our staff of the goals of our paper. So far, we have been doing a great job and I believe our success will continue into issue four.

Jill speaking:

This week we’ve had some pretty interesting encounters and seen different perspectives about our paper. While I definitely learned some intriguing things about the way our paper is viewed, I also feel that this week solidified how proud I am of it and what we stand for. The fact that we can have such an impact on our school isn’t necessarily a negative as long as we’re working towards bettering our student body and fixing the problems that we feel are important to fix.  While that means we sometimes put content out there that may be deemed negative, we would never do that just to cause a stir or to get a rise out of the students. I feel proud of the content that we put to press and feel like we always pick our stories so that they can have a specific purpose and effect, but never to bring anyone or thing down. Ultimately, the most important thing I’ve gotten out of all of this is to see just how impactful our paper is, and that should be even more of a reason to be proud of the work we put out there and make sure that our research is thorough and accurate. I just hope we can express this idea even more eloquently to the staff and they will really take this consideration to heart.

Lesson of the week:

1. Make sure we are always picking topics that are relevant and helpful to the school, and are putting out well researched content.

Lesson 16 of being an editor-in-chief: Check.