Discovery Digest: Aretrospective

AhistoryofDiscoveryDigest,andtheteam thatbroughtyouit.

By:AliferiaGonzalez&JackWalsh

The following article is from the perspective of Aliferia Gonzalez, Discovery Digest’s current Editor-in-Chief.

Discovery Digest formally began with a class of nine students, none of whom really knew what the paper would become. From the beginning, the class had a different tone than most of us were used to.We received two weeks worth of training on our rights as student journalists, how to structure an article, how to develop style and copy guides,AP style, and how to operate as a newsroom.We elected an editor-in-chief, then we were off.

Journalism’s most unique aspect has always been that the class is entirely student-run. Every decision made for the paper, as long as it couldn’t land us in hot water legally, was ideated and approved by students based on the lessons we were given.What this meant for our first cycle was we were still trying to build the foundation to our paper, then iron it out as we were actively making issues. Beyond that, as amateur journalists, we didn’t understand the gravity of timeliness for producing our articles.The Monday before they were due, the journalism crew was scrambling to throw everything together with only two weeks worth of lessons.

After we published the paper, even as brand new journalists, we understood that the end result was not something we were proud of. It was filled with grammar and spelling errors, inconsistencies, a hastily-thrown-together template, and very few positive aspects.

Issue two and issue three weren’t much better.We were all afraid of the first issue repeating itself, but didn’t understand how to properly alter the paper and the process in the newsroom to bring it to higher standards.The Journalism team had a constant drive for improvement—a constant hope that everything would turn out well for just one paper—but we didn’t possess the experience or knowledge to execute much properly. In a pattern that would repeat for most of the year, the next paper was always the one that was supposed to finally be something to be proud of.

As the Editor-in-Chief—at this point the Copy Chief and running the newsroom alongside the Editor-in-Chief—I held the first few papers we did in the back of my head all year as a doomsday scenario. No matter what we did, I was constantly looking for ways to ensure that we’d never have a repeat of those issues.

The fourth paper marked a change in how we did things.We took a minute to breathe and realized that our template, to the fault of how it had to be created, was not up to standard. So, we gave the Creative Director two weeks to flesh out the design and hammer out inconsistencies.While it may seem insignificant, the spout of control worked wonders for our ideology moving forward. From this point on, when something like copyediting was lackluster, we’d take a step back and observe what was wrong, then work hard to make the change needed.We were the only ones to blame for creating and solving our problems.

Semester one’s next issues were a blur to experience. The newsroom had finally begun to settle into a semi-stable rhythm, but there was never a feeling of satisfaction with what we did. Little things like the template being too basic and the grammar errors that would somehow slip through our hands each time began to weigh down on us.

Before the semester ended, it was announced that JanTerm would include primarily optional interaction with Journalism—with the only prospect for work being the establishment of a still-underutilized Discovery Digest website.

In the midst of JanTerm, Discovery High School (DHS) principal Aaron Smith would speak to DHS students about a budget cut situation regarding Hayes Freedom High School.

As JanTerm came to an end and the second semester approached, three new students joined Journalism. We were halfway through the school year, and Discovery Digest had quite the reset.This new start also marked the shifting of roles, and the establishment of a new Editor-in-Chief, a new Copy Chief, and new section editors.The Creative Director position was supposed to change, but our advisor brought up the idea of creating a new template, so the change was saved for later in the year.

Although the more experienced journalists were still learning new things, they had to also begin teaching the new ones how to conduct interviews, how to write articles, and how to copyedit.There was no grace period before the next paper began, so each Discovery Digest member held a workshop on an aspect of journalism during one single class period, and the new reporters began writing immediately after while grouped alongside more experienced members.The process wasn’t easy, and our advisor often had to give short lessons on proper journalistic etiquette.

The first issue of the second semester also marked our first student controversy, where a miscommunication between our readers and our writers created a classist portrayal of our published beliefs that was not held by anyone in the team. While it felt like the world was ending for a moment, an interesting side-effect of DHS students being mad at us popped up. Most of the people who I surveyed for their opinion on the controversy said their initial response was shock that the school even had a newspaper. In the weeks after the controversy, I began to see students from every social group around the school pick up a newspaper when they came out. Discovery Digest had always been more about publishing the paper instead of ensuring students had interest, so to see the culmination of everything we had worked so hard to create finally be picked up and read by most people was inspiring.

By mid-February, members of Discovery Digest had long expressed their displeasure with the appearance of the newspaper. So, through the duration of one average news cycle, our journalists were each individually tasked with the creation of a new template. During the following issue’s production, the new templates were all presented and compared, then voted on.

Another addressed problem was that the position of Creative Director was too strenuous of a job for just one student, so the group agreed to have two new journalists act as Creative Director instead.

Discovery Digest’s second template made a multitude of changes, including higher word counts, the addition of an extra page, more image slots, and a larger amount of articles each paper.When we received the printed copy, it felt sturdier—more concrete. Holding the paper now felt like you were holding something with a strong foundation and unique identity.

The first issue of the paper with the new template—Volume 2 Issue 3—featured a headline article titled,“Camas School District’s choice high schools have an uncertain future”.The naivety in its title still amuses me.

Though I had already been prominently helping run the newspaper, the influx of new ideas and new people latched onto my lack of experience as a leader and led to a substantial amount of chaos. While there was no expectation—at least internally—for me to be completely perfect off the bat, I’d still be looking for ways to improve as a leader when the newsroom’s end was becoming imminent.

I recall a fellow student telling me that one of DHS’ math teachers, who is known for her passion of ensuring DHS students keep their work at the highest level of craftsmanship, complimented the template of the paper. I didn’t process what that meant ‘til later in the day, but once I realized the gravity of that positive feedback, it was clear we were finally starting to get things right.

The next few issues were, again, an adjustment. With the new design directors settling into their rhythm, and the ways we kept innovating on our template and creating new versions of it, the following weeks felt somewhat chaotic.Though the idea was always for the next issue of the paper to be the one where we could say we did exceptionally well, each issue always had some sort of special circumstance that clogged up the production pipeline and pushed that dream to the next issue.

Even though we hadn’t quite reached perfection, the span of time afterVolume 2 Issue 3 is when I really felt we saw the Discovery Digest team come into its own.We became more robust in how we handled things and more comfortable with moving through hazardous situations. Even as the paper was again engulfed in a few minor controversies and special circumstances, we always faced them head-on and had good solutions ready by the time we were about to publish.

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