Pre-lesson: Background

Any journalist would tell you that background is one of the most important steps of being apart of any journalistic creation. Even in my case, I could tell you that background information is prominent to creation of pretty much anything. You might have just read that last sentence and wondered, "what is his case?" well, I'm an editor apart of my school newspaper. Even though, it isn't the New York Times, and the most serious punishment I've gotten for anything bad is being yelled at by somebody who I consider one of my great friends (editor-in-chiefs) I could still tell you that background is important. 

This previous year, our newspaper took a total 180 degree change in terms of production. Our ex-adviser, who had crafted The Torch (which is the publication) from nothing had retired last year. We quickly got a new adviser, who has been great, and was even a student of our old adviser. With this new change, which was pretty much shock to all of us, we changed our format to a news-magazine. As well as that we created a Twitter account, a brand new website (after the admin of our old website, pretty much graduated and left us without a website) and pretty much did anything else to really amp our publication up.

As excited we were to start the year off together again, the year has started with a lot of stress as we're trying to perfect our art. As I write this blog post, we're in the middle of our production cycle and we're all pretty stressed out with the production (the stress comes natural with being atop the class). Our production cycle includes coming up with story ideas, creating which stories will be apart of the print addition, creating page layouts, actually writing and laying out the stories, and dealing with any obstacles along the way.

Apart of my personal profile, as I mentioned briefly in the ""About Lessons in the Newsroom Page" I'm the sports editor of the Torch, and I work along side a Sophomore, who I teach the ropes of being an editor along the way. Freshman year, I started the class as writer and made an impression on that years editors (I was surprised) and became the second-string sports editor alongside who is now one of the editors-in-chief. This year, it wasn't much of a surprise that I'd be taking part of the sports section again, since the switch from Sophomore to Junior year is usually a smooth transition at the same position. I also write and take photos. Apart of the class, you're expected to write stories regardless what your position is. I usually write in the sports and arts & entertainment section, and throughout my blog you'll see the music and sports influence. 

Like I mentioned earlier, background is an important part of anything. You don't get an assignment from a teacher without a syllabus or expectations (some teachers you do, but that's a story for a different day) or you aren't to told to do something without expecting the outcome. The same goes for a publication, you don't conduct an interview without knowing who you're going to interview and you don't write a story about something you have no idea about.

In this post, I hope I provided enough information to allow you to read the various blog posts that I will post to. I'm hoping that each lesson will inform you more about the journalistic world (even if it is the perspective of a high schooler) as well as give you a humorous entailment of each lesson. Hopefully the lessons will be relatable to your own life, and I hope that you enjoy the blog furthermore.

Now, let's get onto the lessons.