My case for journalism

1. Your world will get bigger every day

2. If you're doing your job right, you won't ever be stuck in a cubicle for eight hours a day

3. You get the opportunity to make your community better 

4. You get to be a student every day

5. You will be rich with experiences

6. You will get to work with amazing and courageous people

7. You will get to be part of an exciting time filled with potential and innovative opportunities (never in history has journalism been changing so dramatically)

8. You have more tools now than ever before to reach out and engage with readers

9. You will learn to be very resourceful

10. You get to tell stories that can inspire and connect people

11. You will be a more interesting and interested person — good conversationalist and aware of the world around you — and in today's scandalous society, there's never a dull moment

12. Someone's got to look under those hidden dark rocks — and they have to do it for little to no money, but for the incredible feeling that comes with doing something right.

Attributes of an ideal editor

— Personable, well rounded

— Other interests outside of work, manage stress well

— Engage readers in a different way (social media, texts and visuals)

— Newsroom experience (reporter/copy editing experience)

— Able to delegate responsibilities

— Hold self accountable

— Being competitive

— Being aware of the news

— Diplomatic editor/working well with others

— Knowing your audience very well

— Careful attention to detail

— Strong communication skills

— Empathetic

— Go to bat for employees

— Clear instructions

— Constructive criticism

— Ethical

— Good at budgeting time and money

— Managing team with different styles

— Invested in people

— Face-to-face contact

— Someone who pushes you

— Listen and willing to learn

— Ambitious

— Open minded and flexible

— Be honest

— Assess the value of workers

— Keeping site of mission

— Creative and innovative

— Passionate

— Good attention span

— Firmness which shields empathy

— Great expectations

— Believer that no owns the truth

— super-literate in topics they edit

— organized

— to the point

— proud of work

— tireless

— inquisitive

— confident to a fault

Class on Wednesday, April 28

— Go over "No Doldrums" article

— Review Twins layouts

— Review Ch. 15

*** If you have special requests for things you want me to review/discuss our final days together, please e-mail me. :)

Class on Monday, April 26

— Last AP quiz! Yeah!

— Review Ch. 15: Policy & Responsibility

— Review DTJ Twins layout

Class on Wednesday, April 21

— Most of class will be devoted to production time for your Twins layout assignment.

— I'll go over the final paper assignment, too. Here are the details: For this assignment, I'd like you to submit an application for the editor job at a publication of your choosing. It could be a local or national pub. In four pages, I want you to outline a new vision for the publication, detailing plans to improve the print/online version of the publication, social media strategy, etc. I want you to discuss your attributes as an editor, too, that would make you an asset for the publication. This assignment is due by 5 p.m. on May 10. Please e-mail it to me.

Class on Monday, April 19

— Discussion of legal issues (ch. 13)

— Guest speaker Pilar Gerasimo of Experience Life magazine

— More time to work on newspaper layout

**** If you need help on InDesign basics, let me know. There are helpful tutorials when you open the application, but I can show you the basics of creating text and photo boxes, etc.

Front Page Layout assignment

*** I e-mailed you two more stories (one on the Twins curator and another a guide to making a day of a trip to the ballpark) for your layout assignment today. I also sent a photo of the curator.

Next week I will e-mail you guys a flag for the top of the page.

There are some great tutorials on InDesign to get the basics of starting a layout. Please e-mail me if you have any trouble.

Again, the assignment is due April 21. I encourage you to work on this April 12 during scheduled class time. I will give you some time on April 14 and 19 to work on it, too. 

Thanks!