Editing
The Tower staff is a family, but at the end of the day, I understand that I have a big role in our paper this year. I can dictate the atmosphere and people's opinions about The Tower.Click image to view entire story
Editorial board process
One of the biggest problems I saw last year was the editorial board process. Our weekly editorial often felt rushed or forgotten. No one was assigned to make sure we had a solid editorial each week. I worked hard to streamline this process.
I advocated for a new position on staff, Op/Ed Manager. This person was in charge of overseeing the opinion section of our paper. By putting the responsibility on someone's back, they felt obligated to keep track of the process.
We also are a lot more prepared with our editorials and plan them out beforehand. Last year, during our weekly editorial board meetings before school on Monday, we would just read over that week's editorial. Now, we also plan and assign the upcoming editorial to one of the staffers at the meeting. We take notes during the meeting as a way to keep track of what people are thinking. This process has allowed our editorials to become a lot stronger and put together.
To the right is an editorial that I wrote earlier this year. After a lot of deliberation, we decided how we wanted to approach the topic as a team. I am proud of the clear stance we took.
Preplan process
Since we publish a paper each week, we also have to brainstorm engaging content each week. I am responsible for making the preplan each week with more than 25 stories for staffers to sign up for. This can often be a daunting task. Once every other week, we require all staffers to come to class with 2 ideas to pitch. They must be timely and relevant. These story pitches help us make the preplan each week, and they keep our staff in tune with the school.
Each week, we must also assign the page and copy editors to each page. After we print each issue, the leadership team votes on which page was designed the best. This person has the opportunity to choose what page they design the following week. This reward system encourages the page editors to do their best each week. If a page editor had a bad week and procrastinated, they are "benched" for a week and don't receive a page. The rest of the pages are assigned by the leadership team. I have to be aware of the different page editors' skills when assigning pages, but I sometimes challenge a newer editor with a more creative feature page to help them become stronger.
Copy editors are also assigned a page to edit each week. Our supervising editors and myself also read over the content and leave comments. All stories are looked over a minimum of three times before publishing. This ensures quality content. Copy editors and leadership often comment on the preplan and keep it up to date. Stories highlighted in red are late or missing, and stories highlighted in turquoise have an extension. A change made this year was that I started assigning word counts to stories. This allows the page editors the ability to plan their design before content is due because they can estimate how much space they'll need. It also ensures that everyone is on the same page; staffers cannot say they didn't know how long their story was supposed to be as an excuse now. The preplan's organization keeps our staff running smoothly.
Planning Tower lesson plans
As an editor, I have to plan what is happening in class each day. We have a slideshow we edit to include any announcements necessary. It is important to find the balance between lessons and work time for staffers. Many students used to use Tower as a free, study hour in their day. However, I have made sure to lead by example during class. I am always working on something Tower related.
Our usual schedule goes as follow:
Monday: Staffers check stories for last minute edits. Page editors work to finish their pages. Late deadline occurs after school.
Tuesday: Review PDFs of finished issue. Mrs. Edgerton leads mini lesson. Students present publication reviews.
Wednesday: Story idea pitch. Staffers work on content due each Thursday. Page editors plan, sketch, and begin pages.
Thursday: Content is due for upcoming issue. Copy editors begin to look over stories. Staffers sign up for following week's stories.
Friday: Page editors work on pages. Copy editors finish editing. Staffers make edits to their content. Deadline after school.
"Imran checks"
During my second year on staff, I was at deadline and wanted a bigger role in the process. I realized that many of the mistakes we made in the paper were due to carelessness. We were in a rush to finish the issue and go home, and we forgot to slow down and look at our final product. I took initiative as a junior and added a stepping stone to our publication process. Before we completely shut down a page and mark it complete, we export it as a PDF. I look at each PDF on our Mac computer and mark up any errors I see. Being able to look at the page in its finished form on a bigger screen without the distractions of InDesign allows me to catch a lot of the little mistakes we make. I am able to see when we forget to put a stroke around a photo or when the date is wrong in our flag. No page can be sent to the publisher without an "Imran check".
This is the initiative I took as an editor. I wanted to become more valuable to the team, so I found something I was good at-- being picky and observant-- and made myself important. Recently, I have been training the younger staffers what to keep their eyes open for when looking over the paper. This tradition of PDF checks will continue because of my time on The Tower staff.