Notes in advance of Issue #1

 FINAL STAFF BOX - Please check this one more time and if you see anything you need corrected go so Reeves RIGHT NOW. Thanks

FINAL STAFF BOX Issue 1

Everyone

Deadlines are crucial - you must make deadlines

Don’t procrastinate

Interview early and often

If you need help with interviewing, get support. Lots of people want to help, if we don’t know what the problem is, we can’t help.

Everyone should get help sooner

EVERYONE IS responsible for art/graphics/photos for your story!! If this is an issue for you - please talk to your Editor. They can help. In select cases, they can assign a photographer (we only have a few!!) to help with your image.

Lead writing

Write how and why leads. Narrative.

Follow up with a good nut graf with the who, what, where, when

No WHO, WHERE, WHEN leads

Do not use the word Bowie or Bowie High School if possible

You can talk to me and I will help you brainstorm your lead writing if that will help

Which of these leads makes you want to keep reading?

Sitting down in front of the small electric piano, she adjusts her microphone to a perfect height. She places her hands on the black and white keys, takes a deep breath, and begins to play.

Bowie’s choir group has been gearing up for the first choir concert back in person on Sept. 30, and they have hours of after-school practice to show for it. The choir concert was held in the Bowie cafeteria where they all performed nine songs together.

Caulin Wagner knew something was wrong when he felt extreme pain in his left leg.

COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in March of 2020. Since then, there have been many regulations implemented to mitigate the spread of the virus. Common recommendations for protection against COVID-19 is to get vaccinated, wear a mask, get tested, washing hands, and social distancing.

Helmets clash, and bodies slam against one another, leaving a student-athlete laying

awkwardly on the turf. The spectators fall silent, but Bowie’s newest addition in the training room, trainer Lauren Maldonado, has prepared for this moment, understanding she’ll be a vital part of the athlete’s recovery.

On August 10, 2021 the US Senate passed a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure bill. The bill was crafted by Senators under President Biden in an attempt to rebuild the country's bridges and roads as well as to fund a new climate resilience plan. After weeks of negotiation and debates, the final vote in the Senate was 69 in favor and 30 against the legislation, which was uncommonly bipartisan in 2020-21.

Transitions

We need to work on transitions. The goal of a transition is to provide facts and data that help to tell your story. You should avoid “leading” transitions where you restate the information that is coming in the following quote. We also need to avoid editorializing in transitions. This happens most often at the end of the story where writers often try to summarize the piece.

Example of leading with opinions:

The choir students are excited for the positive effects being back in person will have for them and their performance in choir.

“Now you can’t fake certain things that he might not have heard and couldn’t tell you because we were online,” Tapia said. “Some people sing more confidently with other people around too, which we couldn’t do.”

Leading with opinions:

Both teams are filled with many hard working students and have provided them with life lessons and values that they will carry on for the rest of their lives.

“Band has given me a sense of comradery, and I think most importantly an understanding of responsibility that I think will be so critical to the rest of my life,” Bloder said.

Leading, but acceptable:

With the combination of these hate crimes and in-class discussions held in UT OnRamps Rhetoric classes, senior Yuni Kim believes that these things have had an impact on her.

“I was inspired to join SOAR when I had to confront reality where the anger that I've

felt for a long time about violence against my community became more focused on wanting to stop"

Transition with source transition that avoids leading:

There’s been some debate as to whether or not the facility equally distributes space for both genders of sports. As a girls’ coach, Benson has first-hand experience with battling adversity, and is able to analyze whether or not the whispers of mistreatment are actually present in the environment for all parties involved.

“We have more males involved in athletics here than we do females, and there are hundreds of football players and not as many girls’ athletes, so the fact that they have more coaches is rightfully so,” Benson said. “I want to make sure the picture is painted properly because

there may appear to be more representation for boys’ sports, but there’s a reason for that, because they’re two different things. If you have 100 on one side and you have 30 on the other side, both sides have the resources that they need for their size.”

Transition without leading, or sourcing:

Besides just physical health, climate change has been shown to exacerbate mental health issues as well. In what has now been dubbed “eco-anxiety” or “climate anxiety,” thoughts of climate change have been linked to worsening mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse.

“I definitely think that with climate change, there is this ever-encompassing dread,” Amnesty International Club co-president junior Jake Stachura said. “ There is uncertainty that I won’t have a good life in my future. That affects me and my decisions now, if I do something is it even worth it? If I’m going shopping for something, I have to be conscious of hey, how does this affect the environment? Does this increase pollution? Does this increase carbon emissions? Is it green? Is it locally sourced? How does it affect the climate?”

Editors

Check docs sooner - and do NOT wait to talk to writers who don’t make progress between classes

Design basics still need to get better here - look at old issues. Let’s start getting creative. I have lots of resources both digitally, books, and other school’s newspapers

No art for art’s sake. It either has a message like a political cartoon or it is an infographic with data and visuals to support that data

Editor design links:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/award-winning-newspaper-designs/

https://www.canva.com/learn/editorial-design/

https://bashooka.com/inspiration/30-stunning-newspaper-layout-designs/

https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/#1

You can also just do a google image search for newspaper design ideas. I have lots of books too.

Online

Make checklists of what you need in support so we can give people who need something to do, something to do.

On Interviews:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/isaacs/edit/MencherIntv1.html

1. Know your subject

I can’t stress this enough. You need to know as much as possible both about the person and the topic. Use our modern tools: there are great chances that you’ll find a whole bunch of information on the Internet. Read previous interviews of this person if you can find some, dig further into the person’s job, their interests, and more importantly the subjects you’re going to ask them about.

Thus, first of all, you’ll understand what they say if they get in deep details. Moreover, you won’t be trapped if they are testing you. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having to admit that you didn’t do enough researches.

However, it doesn’t mean that you have to know everything. You can, of course, ask further explanations as the conversation goes on. But don’t get trapped on basic things.

2. Don’t send questions in advance

It would be like blowing the candle before even lighting it. Even when asked, don’t send the questions in advance. Let them know about the topics you’re going to discuss, so they know what to expect, but don’t go any further.

There are two reasons for this. First, the person will get prepared, and be more likely to recite a ready-made speech. You don’t want that. You want to surprise the person, observe their reactions, extract who they truly are. Secondly, interviews can’t be reduced to a matter of questions/answers. It’s a discussion that one person leads more than another. If you send the questions, you’re reducing your job and the process into this very scholar questions/answers things.

3. Humanize the interaction

Don’t dive into your topic right away. Humanize the interaction. Start with questions centered on the person you are talking to. Not their job. Not their career. Not their role in any political organization, or whatever. Get to know them a bit.

It shows your interest while building the foundations of a more personal exchange and a confidence-based relationship. It’s not pleasant to feel reduced to a job, a role, or a position. First and foremost we are human beings.

4. Get your questions ready

I always prepare a list of questions in advance. It’s a two steps process. First, while doing researches, some questions naturally come to my mind. I write all of them down. Then, when I’m done researching, I think about what I want to find out, what I want to get out of the interview, to which subjects it can open up. The more you’ll think about it, the more questions will come to your mind, and the more interesting they’ll be.

However, don’t stick too much around your questions during the interview. They are kind of a safety net, and a way to remind yourself what you mustn’t forget to ask (you can highlight some of them so you know which ones are crucial and which ones can be skipped). Adjust along with the conversation. If you feel like the spark is appearing, drop your questions and go on. It’s where the most interesting things happen.

5. Use a voice recorder

This one doesn’t work all the time. But as soon as I can use a voice recorder, I do. This technique has both advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are: you don’t have to take notes, so you can focus all your attention to the exchange happening and keep eye contact; you’re sure not to miss out or forget any information; you’ll be able to write complete quotes to the nearest word in your article; you protect yourself from accusations — it’s more difficult to call into question what you wrote if you’ve got the voice record of it.

However, not every interlocutor accepts this. You always need to ask them before, and precise what’s your purpose with the voice record. Another disadvantage is that you’ll have to listen again to the whole thing, which is a longer process than just taking notes.

6. Ask open-ended questions, and allow them to drift away (a bit)

You will sometimes need to ask closed questions, such as “for how long have you been…?”. But more than 80% of your questions should be open-ended ones. It’s the fundamental condition to effectively revealing the person you have in front of you, thus leaving with the feeling of a great interview.

Let them drift away. Not too much, because you don’t want them to fall in the “corporate speech”. But let them talk and bring the conversation somewhere else. You can still refocus the discussion later, using formulas such as “may I go back to…”.

7. Use silences at your advantage

Whatever the situation, silence is a very powerful tool that you have to use at your advantage. When you feel like the person is not saying everything they would want to, or they might be lying to you, just keep silent a bit after they’ve stopped speaking. Not too much, you don’t want to be awkward. But a few seconds. They might be surprised, and feel a bit ill at ease, therefore great are the chances that they’ll add further information.

8. Reformulate answers

This is another trick to getting more information. When your interlocutor keeps silent, and you feel like things need to go deeper, just reformulate the answer of the person: “If I understood you correctly…”, and drop an interrogative intonation at the end of your sentence. They might add further details.

9. Pay attention to the answers you get

Human communication is about words, but also about intonations and facial expressions. Pay attention to all of this, as it is your raw material. Is the person stating something? Hesitating? Do they seem angry? Shy? Are they maintaining eye contact?

It’s a great tool to make sure that you’re not misinterpreting what is said to you. And it’s another reason for me to use voice record, as I can focus on all of this.

10. Listen to the little burst

When you feel the little burst, the little excitement, the “here we are” thing, it’s a sign that you’re getting close to the core of the interview. Dig deeper. Ask further questions. Focus all your attention on the moment.

Each successful interview kind of has this “turning point” when things slightly shift. It’s this exact moment that you’re looking for. It’s the reason why you’re doing it. When you have it, don’t let it fly away, go deeper.

All of these can seem like tools intended to extort information from your interlocutor. It’s not. Please see them as tools to lead a great interview. Always show respect to your interlocutor. If they don’t want to go any further on any topic, you have to respect their choice. It’s a matter of confidence. You don’t want to be this kind of journalist.

A great interview is when something magically goes on a higher or deeper level that the basic questions/answers thing.

InDesign practice - day 1 - Remake a page

 Today we are going to start basic InDesign training by taking an existing page and re-creating it so it looks like the original page created by an editor last year.

This is a spatial test, among other things. You should NOT change the dimensions of ANYTHING. All you have to do is to use the Black Arrow tool to move the objects around. 

DO NOT change dimensions of ANYTHING

DO NOT grab the little white dots in the corners. 

DO learn to see the little boxes in the background. 

DO learn to see the pink/purple lines that act as the border. 

DO learn to see the gutters. 

DO learn that spacing matters. 

DO notice how far apart objects are (hint those little boxes mean something)

BE PRECISE - everything will fit EXACTLY as the newspaper page you have in front of you. The objects are set up to do all the work for you - they will shift the text around, and they will fit just like a jigsaw puzzle. 

For the first 15 minutes you are on your own - try to put the puzzle together. At the 15 minute mark - the leadership team and I will come around to help you figure it out.

Let's see how well you can do this.

Here is the link to the folder you need to DOWNLOAD to your desktop. I will walk you through the steps once you have the folder downloaded. We will open the file together:

InDesign Training day 1

On word counts:

The classic advice on word count is always "write as much as you need to achieve your purpose," which is vague enough to drive everyone crazy -- though it nevertheless remains good advice. 

The worst thing is to have young writers recreating great scenes and characters and dialog, feeling they need to drop most of that, and then producing listless reports. My most common response to a piece of writing is, "I want MORE." Here's a counter-intuitive thought: SNO posts can be as long as needed, even though the common wisdom is that everything online should be short. But isn't it true that we all have read some quite long pieces online? 

It can also be helpful to consider how much time you believe readers will allocate to any particular piece. The average reading time (ART) for adults is about 200 words per minute. In my later advising career we morphed into classifying stories by ART. Then we could ask questions like, "Is this a two-minute story/post?" If yes, that translates to about 400 words. The classic newspaper column tends to come in at 800 words (four minutes ART) but that was simply the number of words that would fill one vertical column in a broadsheet newspaper. If a kid hands you an in-depth article running 2,000 words, that means most readers will need to devote 10 solid minutes to reading. I loved this approach, as it emphasized how our work would be consumed and the audience should always be our foremost concern.

I remember when the Portland Oregonian used to run ads claiming that reading the paper is "the best 15 minutes of your day." That seemed to be a recognition that most readers don't spend much time with the paper. I found it both realistic and depressing. We kept hoping to get 30-40 minutes or more of reading out of our print magazine, even if it was in smaller chunks of time. Thirty minutes of reading time amounts to about 6,000 words, but the magazine always contained multiples of that number. 

Bottom line: if a piece of writing is compelling enough, readers will stick with it. At the first indication of the story running out of steam or losing the main narrative thread, readers check out.

Jack Kennedy

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-kennedy-12060510

Composition and Shooting in Manual

 Here are some links to help you with your photography.

Composition first:

Second, let's move on to today's full assignment. We are going to add a few more composition rules. Earlier this year you learned the 6 basic composition rules of photography. Those included:

Rule of Thirds
Balance/Balancing Elements
Lines/Leading Lines
Simplicity/Background
Framing
Avoiding Mergers

Here is the link to the explanations: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/192HfRA92dE7FSuc3UNKx8eswGOvWk4loZv2jcsrTE8M/edit?usp=sharing

Today we are going to add 4 more rules for you to think about as you continue to shoot for this class. They are:

Symmetry and Patterns (repetition)
Viewpoint
Create Depth
Cropping

We are also more clearly defining the first six rules, so their names are changing slightly, be aware of those changes.

Check out the new rules here, you can ignore the one at the end called Experiment and sub in Avoiding Mergers:

http://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/10-top-photography-composition-rules

Please pick a theme, I don't care what theme you choose: football, guitars, Justin Beiber, whatever.
Then use google search and find photos relating to your theme.

Find photos that show good examples of the following photo composition rules. Show me that you understand these rules. Make sure to tell me which photo = which rule, i.e. label your photos with the proper rule title.

Here are the rules again, in case you forgot in the last 2 minutes:
1. Rule of thirds
2. Balancing Elements
3. Leading Lines
4. Symmetry and Patterns (repetition)
5. Viewpoint
6. Background
7. Create depth
8. Framing
9. Cropping
10. Mergers and avoiding them - here I want you to find me a COOL merger photo.

MANUAL photography next

So I am just going to share a link to a camera sim. For some of you this is a good starting point to messing around with the MANUAL setting. It is easy to manipulate and you see very accurate images once you push the shutter button. You can easily transfer this knowledge to a real camera. It would help you if you played with this right before you used a camera so you can practice at home.

http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/

Illustrator basics

 Illustrator is another Adobe product we use a lot in class. It is a super-paint program. I am not very well versed in Adobe....but...it really isn't a complex program to begin. Of course, as you get better at basic skills, you will want to enhance your work. There are people around you in class that are far better at this program than me. Ask around - Anna H, Isabella D, Arushi S, and Azul L, among others, are all very capable in Adobe products and Illustrator.

The good news is that if you have any training in Adobe products in other classes or areas of campus, there is a TON of cross-over between the programs. 

I am going to show you a few things today, and then I would like you to play around in Illustrator for a few minutes. To help you, once I am done talking, here are some videos that might help you get further. They are fast, so you will want to listen, pause the video, practice, and then move on to the next part in the video. They use command-functions, so learning those will help. They are also cross-program in the Adobe platform, so learning them for Illustrator, will probably help you in InDesign and Photoshop.

Here are a few video options. Please use headphones if you can. I have lots of extras in the back, if you need some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GzumUieDPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AinkCNooh2A

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/tutorials.html

I do have three Wacom Pen Tablets that we can set up to use at your computer if you would like to go more advanced. We need lots of artists, so if this is something you are interested in, please speak to me or the leadership team. We need your help in this area.

Final thoughts - we ALWAYS need people to make art, especially POLITICAL CARTOONS. I would also love to publish a true comic strip, like a 3-4 panel ongoing strip that would tell a complete story over a period of time - maybe 40-50 panels total. We would likely publish that online but if we could get a good 24-panel strip, that we could publish every print edition - I am on board.

Here are some basics to Political Cartooning:

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Political-Cartoon

https://www.toonsmag.com/how-to-draw-political-cartoons-quick-guide/

Photoshop basics review - just for you to access if you need it.

 This is a quick tutorial on how to edit photos in Photoshop in case you missed the presentation in class or were not here on that day. If you need help to do these steps, please ask and I will help you. Missing last class was BAD BAD though so you need to get this done ASAP so you know what to do.

Color

Color changes take a little longer and can be much more evident to the eye.

1. Open the photo in Photoshop (there are multiple ways to do this, use whichever way you remember)

2. The first thing we want to do every time is to SAVE AS and rename your photo and save it in the correct folder. For right now that folder is your folder on the  desktop.

3. Go to – Image>Adjustments>Levels

A box should pop up on your screen. In that box is a drop down box that has RGB in it. Use the drop down box and go to >BLUE

Move the black and white slider tools (the hershey kisses) and move them as needed to be underneath the mountain.

go to >GREEN
repeat

go to >RED
repeat

go to >RGB

On this step you move ONLY the middle one which is brown (do not move the black or white slider) just slightly where the photo appears a little lighter than perfect.

Now - here are some new instructions - I will show you this quickly today, but I wanted to give you the instructions here as well.

4. The final step, go to >Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen

You should only do this one time

5. Crop and make sure you have the correct resolution as requested.

6. To change the photo to black and white go to: Image>Mode>Grayscale

When the pop up appears asking if you want to discard the color information, hit yes or okay. 

7. Page Editors - you need to convert the file to CMYK. To do this you go under Image>Mode>CMYK color when you select this option, a pop-up box will appear and you should hit OK to make the change.

7. Save and close the file