Editing, leadership & team building
As an editor for the WSS for three years, I've had to learn how to effectively lead and contribute to my staff.
A WSS Online News Cycle
Pitching
The first step of a news cycle is to pitch ideas. I create a google form that all staffers are required to complete where they initially pitch ideas. I have found that having a day to fill out this form in class allows my staff to brainstorm and seek out potential collaborators, along with having time to think through source and multimedia ideas.
The next day the whole staff sits in a circle during class and pitches their ideas aloud. While they have already written out their ideas, I have decided to keep this aspect of the story ideas process because it allows editors and the rest of the staff to hear all the ideas and get an understanding of the general vision of the article. The editorial board takes note of what ideas are pitched during the class period, and can start to leave notes on what ideas they like.
The form I created for our fourth cycle's pitch day.
Choosing story ideas
After stories are pitched, I hold an editorial board meeting to decide what story ideas we want to see reported. Each editor is responsible for going through all ideas in their section, and offer their own opinions on the idea and other editors can chime in. The advantage of web means we don’t have to limit stories to fit in a paper or magazine, so we don’t usually cut many ideas. We will also occasionally combine ideas that are similar. After story ideas are chosen, I send out a google form to the staff to fill out by the next day with their preferences on what they want to work on.
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Assigning and scheduling stories
As I get Google Form responses, I start the process of assigning stories. I make note of who wants to work on what, and their order of preference. I also have to make sure that each person has the number of assignments that they specified they can take on so I don’t give anyone too much work.
Writing
When it comes to actually reporting stories, we let staff members have the autonomy to go at their own pace. That being said, editor check-ins are held throughout the cycle to make sure everyone is on track and seeing where help is needed.
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Draft Days
Last year, we made the change from using “rounds” where every story was required to be at certain points throughout the news cycle, to “draft days” to accommodate the nature of web journalism. As managing editor and being responsible for grading rounds, I realized how they didn’t work with broadcast’s varied deadlines; a story due in four days doesn’t need to be at the same place as one due in three weeks. So we made the decision to deviate from the system used by the print staff and switch to our own: draft days.
When a story is assigned, a draft day is assigned along with a publishing date. On the draft day, a story is expected to meet certain expectations (see right), and are graded by how many they meet. This system accommodates the varied deadlines that characterize our website.
Draft days are also when stories receive feedback from staff. As EIC, I am responsible for making commenting groups and I comment on all projects, regardless of the media form they are.
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Publishing
When a story is done, the reporters are responsible for notifying the section editor(s), copy editors, managing editor, and me so we know to look over the final version in SNO. We use GroupMe for the vast majority of communication, including publishing. Once editors have sent revisions and all of them have been completed, I look over the story, and if I have no edits, schedule the story to be published on the website.
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I often will still have edits by the time a story gets to me. If the edits are small, I will send them in the GroupMe and let the staffers know to just let me know when they are completed. On occasion, I will have a lot of things that I would like them to change. In those situations, I will either text them individually or, especially with new staffers, I will sit down with them during class and we go over my edits together.
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Some of the revisions I have given staffers in the GroupMe.
Leadership
I’ve been a member of the editorial board all three of my years on staff. Each year, I have taking on more responsibility as my title changed from Assistant Copy Editor to Managing and Features Editor to Editor-in-Chief. Along this journey I have not only grown as a journalist, but as a leader.
When I first joined journalism, I was terrified of talking to new people. Over the years, I’ve learned to get over my fears and ask questions and reach out to new people when I need to. This has played into how I’ve grown as a leader.
As an Editor-in-Chief, most of my time in broadcast is spent talking with people, looking over stories, checking in on in-progress assignments, or just having a chat about anything. Connecting with my staff on a personal level makes them less afraid to ask for help, and also helps them feel more connected to the rest of the staff.
Part of my responsibility as editor-in-chief is creating the day by day calendar for the class. I schedule out draft days, pitch days, and section editor review days, along with adding any other reminders along the way.
I also am the Managing Editor of the Trojan Epic yearbook. I ended up in this role after sitting in the journalism room during yearbook during my open fifth period junior year and while I was serving as the managing editor for WSS online. The yearbook staff was struggling with deadlines and one of the EICs asked for my advice on how to hold people accountable. I decided to take on the task myself, and have worked to enforce deadlines and work with staff to keep everyone on track.​
Something I’ve learned, especially this year, is the importance of delegating. I tend to be ambitious and take on a lot, and I've had to learn, sometimes the hard way, that I simply cannot do anything. I collaborate with many other intelligent and capable people, so I have had conversations about what tasks should be my responsibility, and which I can pass off to my editorial board.
Team building
Beyond building my own connections with staff members, I also help cultivate their relationships with each other. All three staffs try to do some kind of bonding each month. Some of these are traditional: such as an annual white elephant gift exchange, Friendsgiving, and marriage to the publication, but others are organized by staff members.
Before the school year starts, we try to get something together to allow people to meet each other before we go back to school. I worked with the EICs of the other publications to organize this year’s summer bonding. I met with the print EICs and we created a text chain with the yearbook EICs so we could all brainstorm together. We decided to reserve a park shelter, so I called Coralville Parks and Recreation and booked the facility. We also organized who would bring food, and sent out a google form to everyone to get an idea of how many people would be there. Because new staffers are often scared to talk to the returning staffers, we brought yard games and bonded over playing volleyball and snacking. After a few hours, I felt like I already knew some of the sophomores that would be joining staff and our adviser said it was one of the most successful staff bonding events we have organized.
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Me posing with the rest of the winning volleyball team.
I made a group chat with the other EICs to organize the event.
Other forms of staff bonding are built into our regular routine. Every week we have the opportunity for someone to do a Tasty Tuesday and bring food for the class, Wellness Wednesday which is some sort of physical or mental wellness activity, and Fun Friday and present about anything and everything.
Staff work nights also function as staff bonding, even though they are hours outside of school set aside for work. While web staff is not required to attend WSS work nights because they are not working on the print edition that needs to be exported that evening, we invite them to join and do work and participate in staff dinner.
At every work night, the Trojan Epic staff pushes desks together into one long table to eat before getting back to work.
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WSS online and print staffers after exporting the first print issue.