I feel that the primary purpose I serve in the newsroom, more so than being just a designer or journalist, is being a leader. Ever since I became involved with Eagle Eye News, I have been searching for ways to improve the program. To me, my involvement with Eagle Eye News is about trying to leave the program better than I found it. My time on the Eagle Eye News board has given me what feels like years of industry knowledge, skills and experience that I have developed through my pursuit of leadership and team building. I want to inspire others to pursue active journalism and to help them develop their own vocational skills. That is the legacy I intend to leave behind once I graduate. Concurrently, I believe that my editing, leadership and team-building skills are the most important skills that I exemplify as a part of this team. Scroll to see different examples of my editing, leadership and team building.
Editing, Leadership & Team Building
Story Editing
Although I am not primarily a copy editor, I feel that the editing process is one of the most essential aspects of constructing a well-put-together news magazine. It is through peer editing that we as editors are able to teach our staff. When editing stories, I always keep in mind two goals: to ensure the production of high-quality stories, and to aid the education of our staffers. I absolutely love being able to serve as an educator within the newsroom, and because of that, editing is one of my favorite aspects of being a student leader. Eagle Eye News uses Google Docs for all of our stories. Editors edit the stories via the Google Doc editing mode and by leaving comments.
When I make edits of staffers' stories, I typically prefer to leave comments rather than direct editing. That way, I am able to teach staffers ways to improve their writing in the future. In this image, I explained to a staffer what I believed they should change (adding a paragraph), what the change should accomplish (drawing a final connection), and the issue that would be solved by making the change (a misplaced focus).
When I'm editing stories, I always try to teach my staffers to find ways to better construct their stories in order to ensure clarity. As journalists, our main purpose is to inform, so having clarity in writing is critical.
Layout Editing
I initially joined Eagle Eye News to create layouts. At my core, I am a graphic designer. Since I was a child, I have always enjoyed teaching. Now a senior in high school, being able to help others learn layout through the editing process is not only fun for me, but a childhood dream come true. I teach layout to my staffers, but I also edit their finished products. Here, I have curated a few examples of layouts I have edited, complete with before and after images.
Before
After
New Year Lesson Plan
Prior to the start of my senior year, I designed a two-week lesson plan that was intended to teach our new staffers the very basics of journalism from the get-go. I designed and outlined a list of lesson plans, which I assigned to the rest of the editorial board to write and teach. I then put together a schedule for teaching these lessons in order to establish a sense of class culture and allow our new editorial board to adjust to being student leaders.
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AP Style Lesson
I created a lesson plan to teach AP Style to the staff of Eagle Eye News. To supplement the lessons, I designed a practice worksheet regarding AP Style to aid in the staff's learning.
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In late 2022, I realized that a major reason why our staff often has trouble meeting our print deadlines is that very few people on staff fully understand how to create layouts well. As a result of that, I decided to create the "Julia Landy Editor-in-Chief" YouTube channel in order to teach our staff and editors how to create layouts. I also use this channel to post other videos to assist with Photoshop and other technical aspects of our newspaper process.
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Design Lesson and Test
Right after I created the "Julia Landy Editor-in-Chief " YouTube channel, I worked diligently to create three essential videos based on questions and concerns that I had addressed during the process of editing layouts for our latest print edition. During the production of Volume 8, Issue 2, I had to redesign over half of the pages on my own in a 17-hour straight work period. After that experience, I was inspired to create these videos, editing them down to a total of about 50 minutes with highlights of the layout process written on-screen. I then wrote and administered a test that was designed to help me discover who on staff may have a knack for design, while simultaneously teaching the entire staff the basics of design.
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Leadership in the Newsroom
As the Editor-in-Chief and leader of Eagle Eye News, I work closely with the advisor in order to plan lessons, print issues and events for the Eagle Eye. I typically spend about 2-5 hours a day in the newspaper room working with the staff, editors and advisor. Outside of school, I spend many additional hours making both content and arrangments for Eagle Eye News. In total, I spend about 45 hours a week doing some sort of work relating to the Eagle Eye News.
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< Part of my responsibility as Editor-in-Chief includes training and assisting staffers with various assignments. In these two photos, I assist first year staffer Gianna McGinty with Photoshop assignments as she prepares for her Photoshop certification test.
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I work closely with each editor on the editorial board to lead the newsroom. In the photo pictures on the left, I discuss ideas for new print layouts with our Senior News Editor, Kate Becker.
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During both my junior and my senior year, I taught lessons on Adobe Photoshop for weeks in order to help our entire staff become industry certified in Adobe Photoshop. I got my certification in 2022, achieving a 983/1000 on the test. I use Gmetrix to teach my staffers.
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I created practice assignments to go along with my video tutorials. The purpose of this assignment, which I made on our project management software, FLOW, is to teach staffers new skills that could help them become better visual journalists.
Leadership & Team Building
As the Editor-in-Chief, my main responsibility is to act as a newsroom organizer and leader. Through my position, I have learned many valuable lessons about organization, leadership and team building. Here are some examples of my leadership through teaching, lesson plans and mentoring.
Team Building
Having the ability to build and strengthen a team is one of the most important aspects of being a leader. If there is one thing that I learned throughout my time on Eagle Eye News, it is how to lead and build a strong team. Someone once told me that leadership is not about doing all of the work, but about encouraging those around you to work harder, and I have taken that to heart as the Editor-in-Chief.
Every Monday, I host an editor meeting where my board and I discuss the status of print, what is going on in each section and things we could do to improve the productivity of our team. I encourage all of the section editors to do everything within their power to make our staff always feel welcome. It is through ease of communication that a strong team is built.
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On the Eagle Eye News, we use WhatsApp to communicate. At the beginning of the year, the advisor created a group chat for all of our editors. I use it to send updates and reminders, and the team uses it to communicate with one another about ongoing projects. I decided to also create a print issue group chat where I can send reminders about deadlines and praise our staff for good work. I also created a graphics section group chat where I give out assignments and send updates.
During January 2021 and January 2022, right before course cards distribution, I went around to study hall classes with a poster in order to recruit new members of staff to the Eagle Eye News. Our publication is nothing without our team, so I aim to build awareness of the program in order to build a strong team.
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In December 2022, I thought it would be a nice idea to give each member of staff some candy with a positive note. The goal of this was to express my gratitude to each member of the editorial board. I spent three hours writing nice letters to every editor, telling each of them, honestly, everything I appreciate about them both as editors and as people. I put a lot of thought into this project, and most rewarding of all was seeing some of them smile was my read my letters. One of the board members told me the note almost made her cry, and another editor was surprised at how honest and kind my note was. This is probably one of my favorite memories as Editor-in-Chief. I also encouraged each editor to write a nice note for everyone in their section. In total, I wrote 23 notes for the editorial board and six for each of my graphics staffers. The other 30-40 were written by the rest of the board to the rest of the staffers. This was entirely my idea, and I am super proud of this team-building moment. My only regret is that I did not take a better photo of the final product.
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Melissa Falkowski, the Eagle Eye News advisor also teaches an introduction to journalism class, which is mostly freshmen. Occasionally, I work toward building the future newspaper team by assisting her students with assignments. In this photo, I am tutoring two students in Adobe Photoshop.
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