MANAGING EDITOR OF CONTENT - THE PROFILE - MASON HIGH SCHOOL
NEWS WRITING & REPORTING
EDITING
I try meet with staff members about their drafts as often as I can. Because I use my class time to conference with staff reporters, I write my articles outside of school.
Meeting with staffers face-to-face benefits both parties; the staffer is able to share any concerns they have with me and I am able to get to know my peers better. Editing on a one-on-one basis is especially important because many of the staff members are new this year.
Editing has been my main job for two years now. Last year, I was the Assistant Managing Editor of Content, and it was my job to look at a draft of each person's story and edit for both content and AP errors.
This year as the Managing Editor of Content, my job is similar but there is much more editing to do. I work with staffers each month to help them make their stories stronger, and I see anywhere from 2-6 drafts of each and every story before they go on the page.
It's important that I look that staffers' stories and give them feedback because it keeps stories ethical and in good journalistic practice. I love helping students edit their articles because I get to see their writing develop even if they can't. It may sound weird, but editing staffers' articles is one of the best things about my job!
Last year, the editing process took place on hard copies of paper. This involved printing each draft and going back and making changes based on each pen mark made on the page. This system slowed down our production timeline, and I knew we needed to make a change.
I made a push to move to Google Docs, and the results have been significantly better. Now staff members have the ability to work on their drafts at any time, and I can work on editing them outside of class as well. The production timeline has become much more efficient since we have made the switch to Google Docs.