Philip Tate Portfolio
This Semester
This semester I wouldn’t say I learned as much about journalism as I did my first year. My first year I came into the class not knowing how to structure an article and knowing nothing about journalism. I quickly learned the style book and how to write journalism and this year was a continuation of that. With my actual production skill I learned how to edit, which was easy to learn, and I kind of learned how to use Indesign, but I am going to need a lot more practice for my future. Deadlines this year honestly were really hard for me to meet. I struggled to find the motivation and to make the time to write and get interviews. I had multiple stories this semester that I turned in days late and the only reason for it was laziness. I learned that missing deadlines looks really bad on my part and only hurts whomever my article/picture is meant to go to. I also learned, as an editor, how annoying it is when staff doesn’t do their work. For the December issue of the paper my page was almost entirely ghost written by me because my writers couldn’t get their work in on time. With teamwork I would say I was able to fit in with the other editors and easily work with them on creating our paper. I was able to take stories when no one else wanted them and I feel I was a great contributor to this semester’s paper and online stories. As an editor, working
with my writers, I feel I was able to communicate what I needed done. I always specifically put in the notes on Flow what I wanted the writer to talk about in their story. Journalism Ethics this year wasn’t really something I learned a lot about because I am a very truthful person, but I did learn a lot about how untruthful people are about getting their work done and how to tell if they were lying. For the December issue one of my writers would never work on their story and I would tell them everyday for two weeks to write their story. Everyday they would lie and say they were going to do it right then and never would. So I would say I learned how sucky it feels to be on the end that gets lied to and that only makes me want my work to be done even more. My dedication to the Newspaper this semester was there, but looking back, I wasn’t as dedicated as last school year. I definitely feel I could have been way more dedicated this semester and next semester I am going to be next semester. This semester I really struggled to find motivation for doing my work for this class. I am more than aware of my issues from this semester and for next semester my goal is to get all my work done as soon as I can, just like I would do last year. My greatest weakness this semester was hands down my dedication.
My Best Work My best work this semester I would say is my story on districts pushing for schools reopening. I am choosing this as my proudest work because mostly because I really didn’t want to write this story. I try and only pick stories that I can instantly think of how I would write it and with this story that wasn’t the case. When we were picking stories in class this story came up, no one chose it and I volunteered because I felt bad for michael. When I started writing this story It was hard to find the research I needed, but eventually It all worked out. I interviewed the principal and two students, one for school opening and another against schools open. Getting the interviews for the students was easy because there were news articles about a rally thanking the board for opening the school and chose to interview students I saw in those articles. I also knew a few students that were disappointed with the board’s decision to reopen and interviewing them was easy. For my adult interview I was told to either interview one of the board members or the principal. I struggled getting a hold of one of the board members so I ended up just doing the principal. My interview with Mr. Vining was fifteen minutes long, it went really smoothly and he was really easy to talk with. We discussed how he felt with reopening, what his goals were for the school year and how he was going to accomplish them, how he was going to keep the school open, how his first year was going, and he asked me a lot of questions on how it was like being a student during the pandemic. Once my article was completed there wasn’t much change to my story. The only changes were just adding commas and other grammatical things. I would say the biggest thing I learned from this article is that just because I couldn’t immediately think of how to write it doesn’t mean I was incapable of doing it. I’ve volunteered for two other articles after doing this one and it feels good stepping up and taking articles no one wants. I really like how the article reads, the quotes correspond to the paragraphs and transition into the next paragraph.
Three examples
M wh sto ap in it
This article is one of my favorites mainly because its my only story in the physical paper. This story wasn’t my first story I got assigned for december, I got assigned a story that we later found out was’t possible to be written and then it got changed to this. I dreded writing this story, but after I wrote it I questioned why I didn’t want to write it.
My story on districts puching to reopen was my first sroty I wrote hen we came back to school. The main reason I’m proud of this ory is because of my interviews. The student interviews are from pposing opinions on school reopening and they both were amazng kids to interview. My adult interview was with Mr. Vining and was long and he was very easy to talk with.
Another one of my favorite stories I wrote was the one on the Union LA Jordan 4s. I like this story because I’m very invested into sneaker culture. When we were picking online stories all the editors didn’t have enough stories to give out so I was able to choose what I wrote and this was my choice.
Being an Editor
Being a new editor this year was probably one of the craziest editor experiences for myself and all the other new editors. I definitely knew the first time I walked into Newspaper that I would want to be an editor and I made that my goal. I knew that all the editors had worked hard to earn their position in the class and I really wanted to be among them. I really enjoyed being an editor this semester and I take a lot of pride in being one. At the beginning of the year I expected to constantly be working on the next print issue to have ready for the time we went back to school and I wish that was the way it went. Honestly I really didn’t like doing the online version of the paper. The energy from the class last school year wasn’t there because everyone didn’t take the online paper seriously. I struggled to find the motivation to do my online articles because it just didn’t feel like my writing was needed. I didn’t like the miscommunication between the editors, staff, and Ms. Hart. Everything didn’t feel as good as it did last year until we started doing the December issue. When we got the indesign training and I was told we were going to try and do the print version of the paper I got super excited. Everyone’s dedication felt like it was back and I was excited to finally get to use indesign and design my first page. Designing my first page was definitely crazy because I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Grace was next to me pretty much the whole time helping me and showing me what I was supposed to do. When I finally saw my page on the print issue I felt was proud and relieved. Being an editor and having a leadership role in the class is definitely something that I’m proud of. I like when writers ask me for suggestions on what they should do and on who they should interview. Being one of the leaders in the class is just a really rewarding feeling. After reading that prompt I’m realizing wolves packs travel like a publication. The weak wolves or the new staff members set the pace because they are the ones you can’t leave behind or they’ll never heal if they’re wolves or learn if they’re staff. The next group is the stronger wolves or the older staff members. For Wolves that group is supposed to protect the weak wolves and for our class this group is another foundation, but also they can protect the new staff members by showing them how everything works. After that group is the even stronger wolves and the editors. These wolves and editors are the group everyone looks to for guidance and expect to learn the most from. The last group is the leader of the wolf pack and the editor and chief. They run everything and they’re the last group because they are showing and representing everything their pack and publication is.