After an adventurous year, we reflect on our contributions to The Pearl Post with pride as we recognize the impact we made not only in our school community but also nationally in student journalism.
One of the biggest challenges we faced was the learning curve of many new editors who were also first-time staff members. Because the majority of last year’s staff graduated, new staff members filled editor positions and quickly learned the intricacies of editing articles and designing magazine spreads. We are happy seeing these same editors now take a leadership role in training next year’s editors on our final magazine issue of the year.
Another obstacle to an efficient workflow was the division of our staff into three different periods, with many of the returning members isolated from the new writers and editors. Despite this, we took full advantage of the messaging app Slack to stay in communication with members and even organized regular staff meetings to discuss the progress of website and magazine content.
At the beginning of the school year, we made it a clear goal to consistently upload new content to the website. While we had the occasional drop in productivity, we’ve managed to meet our goal by generally updating our website three times a week throughout the year. We’ve had great content in the multimedia category on our website, with nine beautifully-produced videos and over 10 amazing photo slideshows. We also implemented new SNO features, such as infoboxes, to make our articles more engaging for our audience.
This year, we were able to create five issues of our magazine for the second year in a row, exceeding our initial goal of four issues. With a complete redesign of the magazine layout, spread designs were reformatted to permit the inclusion of more photos, infographics and illustrations to increase the attention-grabbing aspects of the pages.
Another one of our strengths this year was social media engagement with our community. With the filled position of social media editor, the number of interactive posts such as Instagram Stories and Reels proved to be an effective tool for engaging the student body. As a result, we have increased our followers on Instagram to more than 800. We hope this emphasis on community engagement through social media continues for next year’s staff.
In the fall, many members of our staff represented The Pearl Post at the National High School Journalism Convention in Boston. They returned with Best of Show awards for first place in Best News Website for small schools and fifth place in Best Newsmagazine for small schools, along with some individual awards. Additionally, we’ve had over 10 pieces published on Best of SNO this year, two of which were from our Room 22 podcast. Most recently, we were nominated for the 66th Los Angeles Press Club Awards in Best High School News Website, Best High School Newspaper and Best News Writing: Campus Issues.
We are glad to have led such a dedicated staff this year and are proud of the many accomplishments our staff has worked hard to achieve. Despite some setbacks we experienced, our staff was able to flourish with great success. We look forward to what next year’s staff will achieve.
