Leadership & Team Building
Profile writing lesson
I want to leave the Red & Black better off than how I found it. When I became Editor-in-Chief, I had so many things that I knew I wanted to change or improve. I did those things but ultimately, it's my responsibility to make sure the staff has the capacity to make a good newspaper no matter who is in charge. I wanted to teach more this year. Now, every Monday, along with the web editor, I teach the staff something. At the start of the semester I asked them what they wanted to accomplish by the last day of school and what they wanted to get better at. I base the lessons I teach off of that. I want the Red & Black to be the best that it can be now, but I want it to be even better than that after I graduate.
Story planning
For each issue, I lead a story planning meeting and an editorial meeting. Both are usually chaotic. They do, however, yield good results. You know that you're ready to produce a good newspaper when all you hear is yelling. I love the days when I'm standing at the board and frantically writing down and organizing ideas while the staffs yells them to me. I also love the days when they need a little more help. The days when I need to prompt people for a bit before they get into the swing of things. I say this because they do always get into the swing of things. If you walk into Room 506 on a day we're planning stories or discussing an editorial, then good luck to you. The staff thrives on chaos. It's how we seem to get the best results, and I'm just grateful to be a part of it.
Debriefing
Sometimes an issue isn't perfect. Sometimes there are obstacles in production, missing stories or any number of other disasters. I won't lie and say that those issues aren't stressful or that I even enjoy them. However, I am grateful for them. When we barely make it through an issue, I know that there's something that needs to change. Disaster, it seems, gives you a chance to reflect. I felt this way with our last issue, in January. We were just losing steam. And yeah, there were plenty of disasters. But when it was over, we had produced a good paper despite the struggles and I felt ready to teach and reflect. I had individual meetings with all of the page editors. Most of them lasted over 15 minutes. I talked about everything that happened during the issue. I told some staffers some hard truths. But at the end of it, we were all much better off. Now, we're producing our February issue and I know that it will be better because I know what to fix.