Recently, I found out about an award called an SNO Distinguished Site. It sounded exciting, so I looked into the requirements to be qualified for the award.
My first thought upon skimming through the list of requirements was "whoaaaah." There are 6 badges that a website must achieve in order to become an SNO Distinguished Site. I realized that becoming an SNO Distinguished Site was going to take a lot more work than I expected. It also wasn't a plausible attempt for this school year's newspaper, considering that there is only a month and a half left of the school year and there are already a few requirements that we are incapable of achieving this school year. I realized just the level The Raider Voice needs to reach to become one of the top school newspapers in the country. However, as discouraging as looking at the requirements for an SNO Distinguished Site may have felt, it also gave me a new source of motivation and has allowed me to more clearly envision what I want for The Raider Voice next school year as Editor in Chief. My goal for next school year is to become an SNO Distinguished Site. It's going to be hard, but it's not impossible and I believe that if my staff and I are willing to put in the time and effort, this is most certainly an achievable goal. I spoke to my adviser, Mrs. Rodriguez, about this. Yesterday we had an online meeting with a graphic designer from SNO, Alex McNamee, to discuss our website and how we can improve it. I was able to redesign the website by changing the layout to a more user-friendly and modern look, updating the fonts to ones I like better, and editing the logo in Photoshop so it is bigger and finally centered on the page (something that has been bothering me since I first joined the newspaper haha.) Then, after going through each of the badge requirements with Alex and making finishing touches on the website design with my Editor in Chief, Dani Tosca, I submitted the website for the Site Excellence Badge. It's one of the six badges, and one of the six steps on my way to becoming an SNO Distinguished Site.
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If someone told me in November that by March school would be cancelled indefinitely due to the spread of a global pandemic, I would not have believed them.
Yet somehow, that has become the reality. And it's a reality that everyone is going to have to deal with and try make the best of. I think that a time like this — a time when we are all in the same boat and all facing some form of fear and uncertainty — is the best time for a newspaper to serve its purpose. Since we all have a lot more time on our hands, it's really important that we continue to inform the community and hope that people are reading our articles and watching our videos. That is why I am dedicating myself to making a stronger effort to write consistently and publish important stuff on our website. I saw a video series that one of my favorite celebrities, John Krasinski of "The Office" and more, started making. It's called "Some Good News" and it's a really feel-good show about positive things that are happening in the community despite the challenges we are facing. I love the way Krasinski is able to bring people together and to get some positives out of these difficult times. It's important as a school newspaper that we are constantly publishing stories, advice, and news updates as often as possible, so people will know that they are not alone. Going into 2020, I have a lot of ideas for how to improve the quantity and quality both of The Raider Voice articles and of my own writing portfolio. This year, I finish my sophomore year and also start my junior year. Right now I have written 29 articles for the newspaper. My long-term goal is to publish 100 articles, or around 100 articles, by the end of my senior year. In order to reach that goal, there's some short-term goals I want to set for this year.
- Publish at least 2-3 articles and videos each month (already failed that one last month, but oh well) - Make sure to keep up my editing responsibilities - Keep a running list of article ideas and of newspaper ideas This year, I also want to try writing a bigger variety of articles. In addition to features and sports, which are currently my favorite types of articles to write, I want to try some more opinion articles, long-form articles, review articles, and feature videos. This will help me build a stronger portfolio with more variety, which I think is important, especially in high school. Overall, in 2020 I want to do a lot more to develop as a writer and to improve my newspaper. Earlier this month, I submitted an article and two videos to the FSPA Fall 2019 Digital Contest. I was very surprised but very happy to receive three certificates back from FSPA today in class! I received an Honorable Mention for my sports feature about Athletic Director Ira Childress, an Excellent for my multimedia event coverage story about Club Rush I did with Pedro Schmeil, and an Excellent for the student-athlete safety package about concussion prevention I did with Eduardo Cachon and Lucas Figueroa. In total, I am so grateful that I was rewarded for the time and hard work that the Raider Voice staff and I put into our submissions, and can't wait write more articles and make more videos for the next contest.
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AuthorI'm Kathleen Lewis, the copy editor for The Raider Voice and a sophomore at Gulliver Preparatory School. Archives
April 2020
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