Tips for Managing Your School Newspaper
School newspapers are an effective means of engaging and entertaining school communities. However, the responsibility involved in creating a standard school newspaper may be quite frightening, from content writing, team management, online student publishing, photojournalism to production; you need lots of hands-on decks.
However, start by learning a few helpful tips for operating and partaking in the publication of your school newspaper. See our guide below:
Assemble a Formidable Team
The first and most crucial step to creating a valuable and engaging school newspaper entails formulating a strong team. Your group should include a student advisor who gives the ultimate authorization of works and ensures all content attains the required standard.
Reporters are necessary for staying informed on the recent and forthcoming events in school. Moreover, your reporters should be aware of sports, politics, technology, and culture per their classes.
You also need a team of editors to help schedule and cover articles, proofread and revise submitted works. Usually, senior students occupy the position of newspaper editor while working with the school editor.
Additionally, include designers and art directors in your team.
They’re responsible for the visual part of the newspaper, entailing diagrams, layouts, and other visual aspects. Furthermore, the art director is in charge of the whole design procedure; therefore, he works closely with the designers.
The production manager confirms that all units work within the stipulated time frame for writing, design, editing, and relate directly with the technical team and the printing house.
Assemble a technical team to publicize the newspaper on the site. The digital publication can be a similar copy of the printed one. Nevertheless, you can publish the articles on your site in a varied layout.
The business and advertising team would help negotiate with the advertisers and create a new business relationship to broaden the advertiser network.
Enlighten Your Team
Your team must imbibe non-toxic, learned, and ethical habits. Ensure that they re-report or edit contents that aren’t satisfactory. Conduct workshops, source guest educators and enlighten the student newspaper team about journalism.
Be Informed
School newspapers must contain relevant information. Hence the students managing the newspaper must update themselves on happenings in the school. Read information about students from various credible sources.
Cover Board Meetings
The administrators of the school make decisions during board meetings. Since you’re acting as the school journalist, be there to cover all sessions. If the board doesn’t permit you into the venue, ask attendees for a recap.
Travel Around
To keep the school newspaper interesting, visit other schools and cover their events. Follow up your school to wherever they’re participating in any competition and cover the event.
Engage in Sport Coverage
Sport is an exhilarating activity for most students. Your school newspaper will attract more attention if students can find a sports update on it. Speak to sports coaches and captains in every team in your school. Ask questions about their contracts, player selections, and everything of interest. Moreover, write about athletes in the school irrespective of their popularity.
Educational Writing
Create a column in the school newspaper featuring educational articles. This column will feature how-to articles (DIY), tutorials, and useful tips. It should only include academic topics. It may consist of topics like how to manage stress, anxiety, and fear, digital learning tips, how to utilize school resources. Topics like this will be useful to most students.
Cartoon Creation
It’s a great idea if the school newspaper features some cartoon content. Meet up with students who have a knack for illustration and engage their talent. Create a layout for this category and ensure that the cartoons are school-related. This feature will help make lots of students smile.
Endeavor to run your school newspaper on the values of truth, self-sufficiency, and fairness. These values will ensure that you fulfill the goals and objectives of your school newspaper.