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I
typically don’t remember the first day
of a class, but I clearly recall the day I
joined Journalism Workshop. It was
the start of second semester of my freshman
year and the last block of the day. The moment
class started, the staff jumped right into
proofing the entire newspaper before it went
to the printer. The process was fast-paced
and exciting to see; everyone was pitching in,
highlighting (both literally and metaphorically)
the tiniest grammar, punctuation and
JH
spelling errors. People shouted out last-minute
questions, ensuring that there were no
holes in the reporting.
It quickly became clear to me that Journalism
Workshop isn’t your typical class. We
didn’t write stories just to get a good grade.
As journalists, we wanted to bring to you,
the reader, information that impacted our
community.
We keep that same mentality as we prepare
each and every issue. We rally together
around the same motivation for releasing
captivating, fun, thought-provoking stories,
graphics, layouts and designs. We debate and
double check that every aspect of our content
is the way we want it to look, from font size,
to margins, to nut graphs, ledes (journalism
lingo) and endings, to accurate reporting.
But, at the same time, we are constantly
evolving. The configuration of the staff
changes every semester — students graduate
and new people join. Perhaps the biggest
change came last spring, when we switched
from an eight-page newspaper to a 32-page
magazine.
This was the greatest challenge that we
had posed to ourselves thus far. With a magazine
format comes a need for high-quality
graphics and meticulously thought-out designs,
more so than in newspapers. Additionally,
there was no guarantee that we would
have the manpower to pull off quality issues
in the future or even fill more than 30 pages
with content.
In essence, we made the already stressful
process of producing MPH’s premier student
publication that much more difficult. And
with only six students on staff this semester,
some, myself included, doubted whether we
could pull it off.
Despite the challenges, our never-fading
letter from the editor
commitment to journalistic integrity and our
desire to reinvent ourselves for the better was
what drove us to make the circumstances
work.
We each took on more stories. Our
designers went on double time to work on
layouts. We recruited outside writers, photographers
and copy editors, who put so much of
their time and energy into the Pebble. (Thank
you!) And our fantastic advisor, Ms. A, went
triple time in order to help us grow as journalists
and so that you could see the best of
our capabilities in hard print.
So as you look through our content,
you’ll see the final product, but beneath the
surface, each page is the result of a wonderful
process that the staff and I have been blessed
to be a part of. We’ll see Dan’s story and
laugh, thinking about the repeated arguments
we had over its headline — a very select few
(read: Dan) preferred “Sleeping Giant” — or
flip to Chris’ advice column and think back to
the time when he first showed us his brilliant
Forrest Gump poster (we hope you’ll love it
just as much as we do). We’ll smile as we see
Saad’s self-made layout (see HamFan), or
think back to early September, when we had
one of many doughnut parties in Mr. Twomey-Smith’s
room while brainstorming the
story ideas that we now present to you.
For these reasons, I believe working
on the Pebble has been one of the greatest
opportunities I could have been given in my
entire high school career. And I hope you
can join us, not just as readers, but as writers,
photographers, copy editors and designers —
or all of the above — this upcoming semester.
Gain a voice, and join the family.
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