Monday, October 31, 2005
Week 11
Finals are over. Time to finish Issue 3.
Andy came to me concerned today. Nazneen was no where to be found and he needed her revised story to finish page 1. Luckily she showed up after lunch. She had slept in after spending all night observing Ramadan. She finished the story, and Andy finished the page. It is so nice to see the staff starting to feel responsible to one another and the larger goal, a newspaper of which to be proud.
My stress level finally reached its limit last week. So this issue we are trying a new system for editing. Instead of me reading and editing all stories the night of layout, the page editors take the stories home and return them the next day. This leaves me to coach the writers as needed. Nazneen and I sat down on Thursday for 30 minutes going through her story about the NJROTC drill team. She's a great newsgatherer, but she is having trouble deciding what information to use in her article and how to organize that information. I was able to determine this only because I was able to sit and discuss with her. Under the old system, I would have read the story and assumed she didn't get the information that wasn't in the story.
Today, I sat with Krissy to edit her cell phone policy update story. We were able to concentrate on grammar and organization. This coaching system is making me feel more useful to the staffers. I also don't feel they depend on me as much, but rather use me as a resource.
Hmm.. where will this usefulness lead to next?
Andy came to me concerned today. Nazneen was no where to be found and he needed her revised story to finish page 1. Luckily she showed up after lunch. She had slept in after spending all night observing Ramadan. She finished the story, and Andy finished the page. It is so nice to see the staff starting to feel responsible to one another and the larger goal, a newspaper of which to be proud.
My stress level finally reached its limit last week. So this issue we are trying a new system for editing. Instead of me reading and editing all stories the night of layout, the page editors take the stories home and return them the next day. This leaves me to coach the writers as needed. Nazneen and I sat down on Thursday for 30 minutes going through her story about the NJROTC drill team. She's a great newsgatherer, but she is having trouble deciding what information to use in her article and how to organize that information. I was able to determine this only because I was able to sit and discuss with her. Under the old system, I would have read the story and assumed she didn't get the information that wasn't in the story.
Today, I sat with Krissy to edit her cell phone policy update story. We were able to concentrate on grammar and organization. This coaching system is making me feel more useful to the staffers. I also don't feel they depend on me as much, but rather use me as a resource.
Hmm.. where will this usefulness lead to next?
