The second in a series by Cliff Lewis
At J.P. McCaskey, the student newspaper is far from the bland, double-sided printout that many would remember from their own high school experience… (Click here to read the first installment in its entirety.)
Printed in a full-color newspaper format, the Vidette looks as if it were published by a major organization, the product of a fast-paced professional newsroom—which is really is not far from the case. The Vidette’s editorial process runs like a fine-tuned machine, yielding a bi-weekly publication with thousands of copies distributed. And without help from the Lancaster New Era in 2005, this paper may never have reached such a high quality standard.
In the midst of the students’ busy lives, faculty adviser Brian McDonald said, the planning and development of fresh articles is, by necessity, a “well-oiled” process. The staff meets several days each week to brainstorm the next batch of stories. Once the line-up has been refined, editors assign articles to individual staff members. All revision, page design, and lay-out is performed in-house by students on the Vidette staff.
On Friday mornings, the 3,400 copies are distributed throughout the school by a group of Special Education students.
McDonald, an eleventh and twelfth grade English teacher, said that the New Era played an instrumental role in optimizing the Vidette’s performance. In 2005, McDonald had been serving as the publication’s advisor for two years. Apart from having written articles for a college newspaper, McDonald carried little print publication experience. “It was really on-the-job training here,” he said. But then, in 2005, the New Era partnered with the school paper, bringing a $4,500 grant from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
This grant provided the Vidette with a digital camera, laptop, and professional-grade publishing software. Additionally, the paper sent two of its feature editors to attend Vidette staff meetings several times each month to coach them in industry standards. During these visits, students were walked through the basics of journalistic practice, article composition, page layout, and the rights of a free press.
“It went from looking very drab to being a very ‘shiny’ newspaper,” McDonald said of the 2005 upgrade, which continues to influence the output of McCaskey’s modest operation. In this case, it would appear that $4,500 can go a very long way, especially when invested in the work of ambitious young students.
