You can tell a newspaper deadline is approaching when the journalism room is crowded with busy people scurrying around yelling at one another.
The Oracle, our school newspaper, is completely student run and takes a lot of hard work and dedication to publish.
There are two staffs, blue and orange, that work on separate issues. Each issue comes out about every three weeks with the two staffs working like a rotary system. It’s a constant flow of work.
No one can slack off because when one step isn’t done, it delays the others. When someone doesn’t finish their story, it delays making pages. The staff has to work like a well-oiled machine.
The Oracle has a fairly large staff with staff writers, section editors online editors, business editors, managing editors and head editors. But even with all these positions there is still plenty of work to go around.
The publishing process begins when section editors come up with story ideas that the managing editors then approve and assign to members of the staff. Then, when the story drafts come in, they have to be edited by the section editor, a managing editor, and then a head editor.
This first part is not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes story ideas are rewritten and there are around fifty stories that go through this editing assembly line. Not to mention, the managing editors have to haggle people to turn in stories.
The second half, where the newspaper page layouts are made, can also be very challenging.
Every section editor and head editor makes a page that has to be checked and corrected a number of times. Everything has to be precise and look as professional as possible, which can take a few weeks.
The publishing process is always stressful, but the staff endures because they love every part of it. The Oracle creates a real life work situation, since your input impacts everything around you. No other team or club can give you that same experience.
Every deadline has to be made, so the staff has to work during class, before and after school, at home, during weekends, and during Spartan time and Learning Seminar.
Now, we have to put in even more time because we are deprived of the ability to work during lunch.
Our newspaper is financed by the advertisements sold by the staff; the school provides no money for the publishing and shipping. If no ads are sold, The Oracle cannot be published.
The business editors have to get these ads onto the pages, and have to deal with business owners themselves. Which means actually going out and interacting with the adult world to get them to buy ads in the paper.
Online editors are responsible for converting each issue into an online version, because every newspaper should have a website for people who can’t get a hard copy.
The Web site is designed to the look exactly like paper version. Everyone works together and takes responsibility.
We are a family and we all enjoy being here. But not much credit is given to our newspaper because it’s overlooked as something small that doesn’t affect the school.