WEB
After being promoted to assistant web editor last year, I spent all my free time after school in our newsroom learning everything I could about website building. While completing each SNO badge was a team effort, I was the person orchestrating it and picking up the work others couldn't finish. With my determination to earn this recognition, I led the staff all the way to excellence. Now a new year, I'm using what I've learned to help keep our publication in a good spot.
Being able to see the completion of each badge was a great experience, especially since I put in so much work to make it happen.
The "Best of SNO" icon from the School Newspapers Online website. (Provided by SNO)
This was the schedule that me and our social media manager put together for the audience engagement badge.
Final plan of video stories that were published and counted towards the badge.
Final plan of podcasts that were published and counted towards the badge.
Final plan of photo galleries that were published and counted towards the badge.
Photo galleries are something we do more often than the other two, as they are relatively simple and an easy way to cover an event without having to write a story.
Distinguished Site Award
When I became our assistant website editor my junior year, I made sure everyone knew we would win the Distinguished SNO site award for the first time. Before school started, I made a plan of the badges we had to win and created a list of the things we needed to do collectively. When school started up in September, I was well prepared and shared my thoughts with the staff.
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With a total of six badges, I created a document for each one and shared it with the class.
Best of SNO Badge
In order to achieve this badge, each day I would submit a story from our website. My story covering the therapy dogs at our public library was the first one to win, with the second awarded to our editor-in-chief for his story on CKHS' ASL teacher. After seeing the stories that won, I understood they tend to look for stories that start local, then go broad.
Audience Engagement Badge
To grow engagement on our social media page, me and our social media manager sat down and made a schedule of what we would post each week. We decided to post lighthearted content like promo videos or award nominations, as we thought it would be a good way to start and end the week. For the days in-between, we used the time to promote stories on our website while continuing or Person Behind the Pin stories.
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Because of the consistent posting and promotion to our website, we saw an increase of traffic which ultimately drove us to the completion of this badge. In order to know the work done on social media was helping send people to our website, we paid attention to our site analytics.
Multimedia Badge
Until my junior year, reporters within our publication weren't very knowledgeable when it came to video and podcast stories. However, in order to get the multimedia badge we had to learn. To start, I created a document for staffers to see what exactly we needed to complete.
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I decided to jump out of my comfort zone and be the first to tackle a news video story, which I was able to do using Adobe Premiere Pro. With little knowledge on videography, I spent a lot of my time watching videos on the basics, like how to cut clips or insert a text box.​
Just last year we were able to complete five video stories, which is more than we have ever done before.
Once I broke the ice, other staffers started to create video stories of their own until we were able to complete all three stories needed. However, that did not come without troubles. Originally, another staffer was supposed to do our last video story but failed to tell me they weren't able to complete it. So, at the last minute I found something to cover (which was the HOSA event).
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For the next part of this badge, we had to create three podcast stories. Since I was more involved with the video stories, I didn't get around to creating a podcast of my own. However, I helped others get scheduled to create some. Much like our video stories, no one had done a podcast till my junior year.
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The last thing we had to do to achieve this badge was photo galleries, which thankfully is something our staff is familiar with. Because of this, we were able to knock those three stories out of the way relatively quickly.
My pushing for new types of journalism wasn't just fueled by this badge, but rather the need to expand our knowledge in multimedia. As someone who wants to go into journalism, I know doing a little bit of everything will only better prepare me for my future. ​
Not only was this our first time doing news video stories, but it was also the first year that we had done podcasts for our website.
This story of mine represents the single side bar template. This side bar is a great way to promote other areas of our website while even encouraging people to donate to our publication.
Story Page Excellence Badge
For this badge, our team had to utilize all of SNO's story templates.
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The most common one we use is the single side bar, which is able to display a wide range of things like recent stories published or advertisements. The opposite of this is the full width template, which includes only the story on the page.
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While the regular story template is always a go to, when articles are on the longer side and can be split into section, we advise staffers to use the long form story template. This style allows the story to be broken up into multiple sections as shown below.
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When it comes to long form stories there are two different styles we can do. The first one being the immersive photo, where the image is spread across the full screen with the story under it. For the immersive half photo, one section of the page is covered by the headline and deck, while the other side contains the feature image.
Like the name suggest, the immersive photo template takes the feature image and blows it up across the screen. Below the image is the full story in the same place as any other would be.
Much like the last, the immersive half photo template is the feature image covering half the page. Personally, I enjoy this design as it gives a cleaner look to stories when done right.
Since the superintendent of public instruction debate was naturally spilt into sections, my partner and I decided it would be best to showcase the article through the "long form" template.
For my college signing story, I decided to utilize the info box tool to make an interactive Q&A for readers to see.
This was the document I shared with staffers, which allowed them to add their ideas and see our progress.
While not necessarily a template for stories, info boxes can be used as another layer of engagement in stories. When I did a story covering last year's sports signing event, I utilized the info box for the athlete's Q&A. For each section in the info box, there must be an image to completement the text. ​​
Continuous Coverage Badge
During a leadership meet, we spent our time pitching stories that would count towards developing coverage. After multiple good ideas, we landed on the "Addams Family" play, which consisted of coverage on the auditions, rehearsals, and performances. Since developing coverage happens over time, we made sure to plan this in advance.
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Like the name suggests, quick coverage articles must be a story on an event that is published no later than two days after it's occurrence. Since our publication publishes sports stories no later than 48 hours after it happens, we were able to complete this section easily.
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​Sustained coverage was the final, and arguable the hardest part of achieving this badge, so, we started by planning out two months' worth of content. For the first month, we had to publish one opinion and feature story each week, where the next month we switched to sports and news. If we missed a day of coverage, we would have to restart the month, so sticking to the schedule was extremely important.​​​​
Site Excellence Badge
This badge had everything to do with updating our website and making sure the content we publish is up to standard. Since the previous assistant web editor did not leave notes on how to edit our site, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and reading articles to learn. After I learned specific things, I kept notes in a Google Doc for future AWEs to refer to.
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SNO looks for consistency in fonts, colors, and themes throughout our website. On top of that, I had to make sure there was little to no empty space on our homepage, while creating a new design that was distinguishable from the last. So, I changed around different sections on our homepage and utilized a new theme for our site.
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​While redesigning the site was a main part of what needed to be done, I also had to revise stories that were already published. Since some stories had noticeable grammatical errors, I took it upon myself to go back and fix what I could see before submitting the badge. One of the main things we got marked down on were story captions and too many creative commons images, so I made note and helped redirect the staff.
To make sure we were publishing consistently, SNO required us to have stories no older than three months on our homepage. At the same time, I had to make sure every link on our site was active. While this badge had many parts, it was one of the easier ones since all I had to do was sit down and do it.​​​
When we lost our AWE at the semester mark this year, our sports editor and I jumped in to absorb the position. Since some time was lost to complete the badges, we are wasting no time to get the four badges we still need.
This document was used for staffers to view our planned coverage for the continuous coverage badge.
Since there were no instructions for how to restructure our website, I decided to leave notes for the next assistant website editor. This document was one of three that I created, all containing descriptions and screenshots on how to do different things.
Continuing Site Excellence
While it's always a great feeling to win, the SNO Distinguished Site award is really there to help our publication maintain viewers, content, and diversity. With my experience completing all the badges last year, I have a good idea of what needs to be done in order to succeed again. Because I'm a senior, it's my job to teach the underclassmen the skills I have learned, so our publication can continue on the road of excellence.
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My goal is to leave The Cougar Chronicle in better shape than it was when I arrived, and as of currently, I feel more than confident that next year's staffers will do great. ​