I remember when I was a kid, and I saw the newspaper come in the mornings. I always wondered how the news was printed on these papers and handed out so quickly. The process of the newspaper fascinated me more than the actual news. I decided to become a freelance reporter for the newspaper in my hometown during my senior year of highschool, and I got to learn a little bit of the process of the printed newspaper.
When I came to Hardin-Simmons University, I decided I wanted to write for the newspaper here as well: The HSU Brand. But when I got here, it transitioned completely to online. Even though it was still a newspaper, the new process seemed foreign to me since I was used to the process of a printed paper.
Now, as the editor of the paper, I have had to reinvent the process of publishing The Brand every week. I would like to take the readers of this online newspaper along the process that The Brand staff has become familiar with.
Stage one: Monday night meetings
The first stage of this process involves a meeting that happens every Monday night. This meeting involves discussion about story ideas, events going on around campus, and writers signing up to write stories for the week. Once the meeting is over, we know exactly how many stories we will have for the next publication and the writers have until Friday to turn in their stories to our copy editor, Emily Williamson (junior criminal justice major from Amarillo).
Stage two: Stories turned in to the copy editor
Once Friday comes around, and writers turn in their stories to Emily. She does the first draft of editing to all of the stories to be sure that everything is correct. She works on these stories during the weekend, depending on how many stories are turned in for the week. Once Emily is finished editing them, she turns these stories in to me, the editor, by Sunday or Monday.
Stage three: Stories given to the editor and Dr. Armstrong
Once the stories are turned in to me, I review the stories, giving them another edit. This is usually more of a review. I, then, put them into The Brand’s Google Drive, making them available to the higher staff. More importantly, these stories are sent to Dr. Randy Armstrong, co-advisor for The Brand who gives them a final edit. He focuses on reviewing these stories, preparing them for Thursday morning’s publication.
Stage four: Publication
Once these stories are all edited by Dr. Armstrong, they are published on Thursday morning by Noah Rubel (junior strategic communications major from Abilene). While the stories are being published, the new stories for next week's publication are already being written, and this is how we keep the stories flowing.
As you can see, the process for publishing articles to The Brand can be complicated, but this process is important for making sure that these articles are correct and correspond with HSU guidelines those of Those of the Associated Press Stylebook. Each part of the process is an exciting stage, getting the articles closer to the readers. It is important that each staff member completes their role in the process, and each staff member is important to the entire online newspaper.
If anyone is interested in joining this online process, please contact me at 903-900-0029 and become a staff member of the 2022-2023 HSU Brand.