Editing, Leadership and Team Building
Sophomore year, I was unexpectedly thrown into a leadership position. I had to learn how to teach and encourage others, while still trying to grasp things myself. I want people to be just as proud and enthusiastic of their work as I am, and a crucial part of that is being a supportive leader.
How do I lead?
When I first stepped into the role of Associate Producer, I didn't really know how I wanted to go about leading others. I thought about how I had been taught and used that as a base, changing things I wish would've gone better for me. For example, there were many instances my freshman year, where if we did something wrong or if something needed a little bit of tweaking, the senior would make those minor tweaks for us. I had wished they would have instead told us what needed to be fixed, instead of simply doing it for us. It makes it harder to learn and grow when those opportunities are taken from
you. I made sure that whenever I was giving edits or critiques, I was doing just that. Nothing less, nothing more. Of course, if I were asked for assistance, I would provide it, but I wouldn't try to step in and do anything myself.
Another thing I made sure to do was lead by example. If I wanted others to have their content in our google drive the Friday before our show, then I made sure that I applied those same rules to myself. Even if I knew that I could get it done and ready the night before, I knew that if I didn't set myself to the same standards that I wanted to hold everyone else to, it would set an obvious bad example. It would also show everyone else that deadlines didn't matter, when they are in fact crucial in order to set the foundation for a smooth show.
Finally, in my opinion, the most important thing in leadership, especially in a journalism class, is communication. For a class set solely on communicating and reporting for others, it is clear when proper communication doesn't occur between the staff, and it can lead to so many misconceptions or drawbacks. When we were first creating the graphics and setting the foundation for our show at the new school, I remember our Executive Producer had a conversation with me about how he didn't believe everyone else was offering help or contributing as much as they should. Later, when we had a conversation with the rest of the staff, they conveyed how they were more than happy to help and just didn't realize it was needed since nobody asked. This is just one example, but there are so many scenarios where underlying annoyance grows simply because proper communication never occurred.
This was around when awards were due for submission. At the time, we had no idea what stories were contenders and what weren't. I had spent one of my Saturday afternoons going through every package of the season and leaving critiques on all of them (seen on the left).
The next class period, I hooked my computer up to the board, and we narrowed down which packages we potentially wanted to submit. We watched them together as I typed down critiques the group had (seen on the right). I then presented my document to them. The green highlights indicate when someone completed the re-edits with the feedback.
I tried to include things I liked about the package to make sure nobody felt bad. I made sure to mention what I liked about the packages while we were reviewing them in class. Especially for the packages I critiqued that were made by the Broadcast 1 students, I didn't want them to feel discouraged.
When I was Associate Producer for WG-TV, I mentored two of our Broadcast 1 students. This was the first package they did that aired on our show. There were many critiques I sent them, and I made sure to keep checking in with Ms. Wiemann, our adviser, to ensure she liked the direction the package was heading in. I tried to be as hands-off as possible and simply tell them what to fix instead of doing it for them. I continued mentoring them throughout the year and sending them critiques on their packages. I wanted to guide them on how we wanted our products to look like without taking over. On the right are some Google chats between me and them, and the story they worked on that I supervised.
When we were first starting out, I also made the outline for our show and how each one would be structured. I based it off of what I was familiar with from freshman year, but also had to make a few changes to adapt to our circumstance. Since we had a small staff, we couldn't achieve what a bigger staff could. So I had to remove a few sections and move things around, such as where our news block is, so that it still flowed well.
This isn't a favorite package of mine, purely because of how simple it is. I feel like I could've gone into things a little deeper, and it was a very surface-level package. There are also technical things that I wasn't very happy about.
Some things I would change
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Make sure the interviews aren't filmed at the exact same place
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A lot of the shots were shaky, so either stabilize them or choose less unsteady clips
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I would have asked more questions, such as what this showcase means to them and how they think it left an impact on our school. I might also ask about their current lives and how showcases like these reflect growth from history.
This contributes to my Commitment to Diversity because it focuses on our Black Student Union and how they were bringing awareness and trying to spread the idea of unity to the rest of the student body. We are privileged to have a school that appreciates and celebrates many cultures and I wanted to shed light on one organization that was doing that.
Before school started, I took the initiative to reach out to the broadcast adviser at the new school to see if she needed any help before school officially started. I ended up going to meet her in-person and we discussed what our ideas and goals were for the program as a whole and for this year in general.
My first conversation with her can be seen on the left.
On the right is an example of me reaching out to run things by her and ensure that I am critiquing things properly. I wanted to make sure she was happy with the way things were going, especially because I was still learning the ropes myself. I ensured that I wasn't misdirecting and was assisting people to the best of my abilities.
We had this conversation a little bit after our first show. It wasn't very clear what everyone expected each person to do. So in an attempt to solidify expectations for everyone, I initiated a discussion so that everyone was held accountable for what they were supposed to be doing and people weren't unnecessarily developing an underlying irritation for each other.
These were leadership slides we had made to document the specific role of each leader. It held us accountable and made sure we all understood what each person's responsibility was. This would prevent the possibility of some people taking over and stepping on people's toes, and would hold others liable for doing each part of their job properly. We also used the slides later in the year to introduce the freshmen to possible leadership roles they could apply for if they stick with the program. The slides conveyed to them what each of our jobs was and who their main point of contact was if they wanted assistance for something specific. Each leader had filled out their slide, and we showed it to the younger students so that they could be familiar with us and our roles.
I made sure to check in with our staff through our messages group chat to ensure things were going according to plan and everyone was in a good spot, especially as we neared show days.
During the summer, I also proposed a work week as we neared the beginning of the school year. It would give us time before we came back to school to get new graphics, music, templates, etc for the new season. That way, when we come back to school, we are ready to start producing content since the leg work for the design is finished.
This package was very impactful in a lot of ways. Not only was it a great story, (it won Tops in Texas for feature package!) but it caused some conflicts that ultimately strengthened bonds. One of my classmates and I had worked on this story together, and we both essentially had differing visions on how to approach the story. It was difficult because we weren't agreeing with each other at the time, but still had to work together. I think it is beautiful that we were able to still end with an impactful story while fixing our conflict. I believe we were able to strengthen our relationship due to this package and the experiences that came with it.
This also contributes to my Commitment to Diversity by featuring a program that isn't known by others and featuring Mabry, who experienced intellectual disabilities. By focusing on someone who isn't getting the recognition she needs by the state, we were able to provide a platform for her to share her story and gain support from others.
Since we were all new to working with each other, team building was especially important to strengthen our bond with each other.
One of the things I initiated was a Secret Santa for our staff. We had everyone draw names from a bucket to figure out who they were going to be getting gifts for.
Since all of us weren't super familiar with each other's likes and dislikes, I sent out a Google form that included questions, such as what the person's favorite snack was, that would help in the gifting process.
To make the entire week fun and festive, we had agreed on having a few lead up days to the major gift. Each day would be dedicated to a simple gift, such as getting a drink, snack or a dollar tree gift. Each day, with your small gift, you would leave a hint for your person so they could try to guess who you are throughout the week.
Though everyone was able to guess who had them pretty quickly due to the limited staff, everyone still had a lot of fun. Ultimately, activities like these are what brought us closer.