JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS
STANDARD 1
JOURNALISTIC PERSPECTIVES: Students understand the history, development, and function of a free and independent press in the United States.
By collecting school-relevant content and seeing the stories of students, I understand how our student newsmagazine amplifies the voices of students at Carmel High School. Our newspaper is unique in that we are the only publication that focuses on our specific student body.
STANDARD 2
LEGAL AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF SCHOLASTIC JOURNALISM: Students understand and apply knowledge of legal and ethical principles related to the functioning of scholastic journalism in the United States.
While I have not encountered an assignment in which I encountered journalism law and ethics, I am prepared for those situations. I know to use FERPA forms and the basics of journalism ethics. I have become more familiar with the boundaries of what is ethical to include in the publication and how to navigate ethics.
STANDARDS 3 and 4
STUDENT PUBLICATIONS OR MEDIA WRITING PROCESSES: Students discuss ideas for writing with others. They write coherent and focused stories that demonstrate well-researched information, appropriate journalistic structure and style, and a tightly reasoned flow of ideas. Students progress through stages of journalistic writing processes.
WRITING FOR STUDENT PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA: Students write news stories, features stories and columns, in-depth issue features, reviews, editorials, or opinions and commentaries effectively and accurately in print and media, while adhering to legal and ethical standards for scholastic journalism. Students demonstrate an understanding of the research, organizational, and drafting strategies in the journalistic writing processes. Student writing demonstrates a command of Standard English and the use of media formats that follow Associated Press style manual guidelines for consistency.
I have written news stories and Q&As outlining current events at the school. I have also written columns, writing on areas where I have experience to communicate a message to the student body that I believe to be important. While writing is not my main focus in newspaper, with more of a focus on graphic design, I still consider it to be one of my strengths.
STANDARD 5
STUDENT NEWSPAPER AND YEARBOOK PRODUCTION CYCLES:
Students write within an established production cycle, meeting deadlines and following Associated Press style manual guidelines for consistency. Students analyze, evaluate, and critique their own work and that of others as they improve future publications or media based on feedback. Students on newspaper or magazine staffs demonstrate their ability on PUB.5.1 and PUB.5.2. Students on yearbook staffs demonstrate their ability on PUB.5.3 and PUB.5.4.
In my three years on the newspaper staff, I have worked to meet deadlines and perfect my personal issue cycle. My focus this year has been encouraging editors to do work at the front end of the issue cycle, having the issue be publication-ready early in the process so that only small changes are made leading up in the week before the final product goes to the printer. I have continued to critique others’ work by giving editors feedback on their designs and proofreading others’ spreads, and I help people when they consult me about design and issue cycle questions.
STANDARD 6
MEDIA CONVERGENCE: Students write and develop multimedia formats that mix audio, video, and data.
As Front/TOC/JAM editor, I focused on graphic design, creating illustrative spreads that convey information in a visual manner. Although I have not experimented with audio or video in my assignments, I have done my best to think outside the box in terms of design by experimenting with different illustrative styles.
STANDARD 7
MEDIA LEADERSHIP AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT: Students understand the organization, economics, and management of media staffs. They explore career paths and further educational opportunities in journalism.
As a managing editor and having gone through different levels of the newspaper staff, I have seen how being on a journalism staff has unique responsibilities from creating content and being accountable to critiquing and organizing timelines of others’ work. As I am pursuing visual communications design as a major, I have explored further educational opportunities in journalism and will continue to develop my design skills in college.