Yesterday, the first issue finally came out. This month has been a struggle trying to balance between teaching everyone the things they need to know to be successful for this year, while having them attempting to apply those skills at the same time. Overall, it has been a very successful issue. Everyone learned a lot more about what we are wanting from the paper this year and stepped up to the plate. We’ve ended up with a cohesive issue that definitely displays where we are as a staff right now.

Sarah speaking:

It is such a relief to be done with issue one. Organizing everything going on with the Web while managing 28 other people has been quite a task. A very stressful task. At the same time, I am so proud of the work Jill, my staff and I have done to make the final product a success. For the first time in years, our staff sold enough ads for the first issue to print a 20-page paper, our design is the most consistent it has been since I have been on staff and the staff has the most enthusiasm I have seen in a while. Nevertheless there are some things we can approve upon for our next issue. I know already we have an incorrect grade with a student, a sub headline that is spelled wrong and captions that aren’t formatted correctly, but part of the improvement process is letting the mistakes go and turning the errors into positive improvement. The staff is already on the right track and for our first issue, we are doing a great job.

 Jill speaking:

I never realized how stressful it was to be an editor-in-chief. There. I said it. I didn’t consider all the stress and the struggle of having such high hopes for your publication and working with people to achieve those goals while still letting them have creative freedom. Kudos to Butko for doing it all by herself last year. While we may have had a few minor mishaps (my name randomly printed above the folio on page six, anyone?) I think it gives our paper character. We’re not perfect and our paper doesn’t have to be either. And it makes for an exciting new game called, “How Can We Sneak Jill’s Name Into Every Issue From Now On”.

Should be an interesting year, and I can’t wait.

Lessons of the week:

1. Be proud of your work. The mistakes are what make it yours (along with the 28 other people on your staff).

2. Be happy that when making example pull quotes, you used “senior Jill Applegate” instead of trying to be funny and using “Seamore Butts” or something dumb. We don’t need Seamore Butts printed at the top of page six.

Lesson number six of being an editor-in-chief: check.