News Writing
Students involved in racist social media incident
This article outlined the details of a recent racist incident as well as the district's response and was published shortly before my feature piece about experiences with racism. It was a valuable learning experience because we had to work with a cautious administration while also having inside information from victims of the incident. The story taught me a lot about protecting sources and the ethics of not using their quotes if they say not to.
Beloved student passed away Nov. 20
While brief, this is one of the more serious stories I've ever written. I interviewed a handful of students who were close to the student that passed away as well as the creator of a donation site for the student and consolidated their messages and memories of him in an obituary-style news article. Writing this taught me about being careful to share the news and the students' messages without sharing information that the family didn't want to be public, such as his cause of death.
Bull's Board Corner: January 11
This article was one of the most recent of a series I have informing the student body of what the Board does. This series has been the basis of my news writing this year; digestible but detailed writing that turns an extremely long and often tedious five-hour BOE meeting into a five-minute read for the student body to understand exactly what happened and what decisions were made each time.
The Board minutes do a similar job, but they're often full of confusing jargon and are posted multiple days after the meetings. I post mine within 24 hours of every meeting and make sure that it is easy to follow, only including the information that is relevant to students. Before most meetings, I also ask my followers on social media if they have questions and include the answers to those questions in my articles. I've written seven Board Corner articles so far this year and they have been among the most viewed articles we've published; huge policy decisions are made at most of these meetings and these articles have filled an important gap.