*sigh* I love our school's newspaper. This seems to be its suckiest year from what our adviser is saying, but we are still going for it. I mean, when you have eleven people on staff and you are trying to put a F-ing 52 page paper... That is balls. It is getting so hectic though because no one is turning there stuff in. Even me, I am guilty of it as well, but the main difference between myself and some of the other people is that I am at least trying to get done. I mean, the only story I ever handed in on time was my story on the guy that got gassed in Ecuador; and by the way, it turned out to be tear gas, not mustard gas. Though it still remains the dude was gassed. That kind of thing does not happen to you common American teenager. I met the guy too, face to face, he is a really cool guy (and pretty cute, too ^_~ He looks like Abe Lincoln only not as tall and Amish, lol). That story is pretty much gold from what I hear. Though, the main reason I do not hand in my stories on time is because I am trying to make these things good. Even though I handed that tear gas story in on time, I pulled that sucker out of the finished folder before it wa checked so I could add more too it. Even after that I added another page worth of information to the story in Word (double-spaced). All I have left to do that I have actually been assigned to me are a sports story, in which I still want to get a hold of a couple more students before I put that story in "Layout Ready Copy"; and two briefs on our schools Mock Trial team and Science Club.
What else have I done? There are several editorial cartoons in the paper, maybe five or six, only one of which is not mine. Though I would have done that one, too, which I really should have. I have an illustration that is the part of the main element on the back of one of the sections (with how our paper is set up, the back is a good place to have things be. It is like the front, but not). I have written an editorial, a column, two or three other stories (aside from my sports one), and a breif. I could still do more. Right now at this moment I want to do more. What I have done is not even the most out of anyone, probably far from it. Though how far can you really be when you have a staff of eleven people, of which only five or six people actually give a crap, and you are trying to put out a 52 page paper.
I got some huge compliments on the way home today. I was getting a ride home from our main graphics and layout guy and he told me that myself and this other girl that has been on staff for about two years now are easily the best story writers on staff. He said my editorials and columns are not the best, but when it comes to putting a story forth I am damn good at it. He said that he is sure that by next issue I am going to be right up there with a guy that was the best writer last year (who is now graduated). He also mentioned that he has his portfolio of his layouts online which include the graphics, illustrations, and whatnot. He said that a year ago a guy from the New York Times e-mailed him complimenting him on his layouts and such, and then recently contacted him again saying kind of the same things and also saying that he thought the illustration (that I did) was excellent! I did not even think it was that good at all, but... you cannot really deny someone from such a well-known paper. I mean, I can always, always do better, but it was really good to hear those things. Especially after what went on tonight.
It was kind of a quiet night, people were mainly just getting their stuff done. there were only five people there, including the adviser. At one point my friend and I were hungry so we told the adviser we were going to go get some food and we left for a bit and walked downtown to a pizza place and ate a whole, large pizza; then walked back up to school and continued working on our stuff. Apparently something had happened while we were gone, and then in the other room (the "news room" is has a separate room in it) because our adviser just came storming out saying "That's it, shut it all down, it's over!". So we saved our stuff and shut the computers down. We all eventually gathered around our adviser at his desk and just kind of talked about what was going on. In a rather large nutshell, it is mostly that people just do not really seem to care this year and he is tired of putting up with all of the same drama every time. So we had this big, hour and a half to two our chat about everything. By the end of it everyone seemed pretty content. We were not really happy, but just kind of settled down and on level with one another. It was not the best day for the paper, but hopefully when we get together Saturday we shall have a better time. The school is open from 7AM to 1PM, we are being kicked out at one because of renovations and they are messing with electricity and such. I am not sure if we are going to just go to someone else's house or what, but I am thinking tomorrow should be a better day.
I want this 52 page paper to happen. I want to see this baby shine. I want to take this thing to Nationals and blow everyone out of the water, EVEN THOUGH the people that run Nationals hate us and will place us lower just because we are better and we are damn proud of it. Go ahead and F-ing call us cocky, we have a reason to be.
Last year our paper was placed at 7th. it was pathetic, and we did later find out that the reason we did not get 1st, or at least the top three two is because they do not like us. It was not because that issue we presented was bad. Sure it had its problems here and there, some more obvious than others, but our adviser said that there was no other people there that should have beaten us. Our adivser may be a little arrogant, but he will tell it like it is. If there was a paper there that could have actually beat us, he would say it. JEA (Journalism Education Association), who run Nationals, were trying to send a message by placing us at 7th. We had half our staff quit at the start of this year. They and JEA think we cannot do it. They think that we cannot come back. They think that we are through. Well, even though these times are very trying, we are far from over. We are going to get this 52 page paper out, and we are going to shove it straight up where the sun does not shine. Our F-ing entertainment section is GODLY in appearance. I am not sure what the actual stories in there are like, but the visuals a really F-ing cool.
JEA and the quitters of our staff were tying to send a message by doing what they did, and we are going to send one right back. Our staff shirt this year is themed off of that. We are very in your face. If you try and push us around we shall come back and knock you straight across the jaw.
I want to see this thing take off.
