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Jane Ripps
Managing Editor, ODYSSEY Media Group
editing
editing
editing
editing
law, ethics and news literacy
As I continue my career in scholastic journalism, education on my rights as a student journalist, as well as how to tell stories accurately, has remained a prevalent lesson. At the beginning of the year, we always cover notes on the more basic definitions, but my direct experiences in dealing with fact-checking have remained the most formative.
pitches
After playing around with the structure of pitching story ideas for the newsmagazine, the OMG Editor-in-Chief and I decided to do a variation of a formal pitch and brainstorm. To the left, everyone on staff had to write 2-3 sentences about five potential story topics. The formal pitch selected one of these topics and flushed it out, fully addressing the 5Ws and 1H.
transcribing
Transcribing with fidelity is the first step towards accurately representing stakeholders throughout a story, as well as support the writer's message. A clean transcription is a writer's evidence. Throughout my time in ODYSSEY, I have worked to create clean transcriptions for every single interview. While playing the audio, I make sure to clearly write out titles and spelling of names as well as every single word that comes out of the interviewees mouth.
in class notes
At the beginning of every school year we study presentations and videos on ethics. Above, I have included my notes that I have taken on the SPJ Code of Ethics, the difference between morals and ethics, as well as other important vocabulary any journalist needs to know to execute fair and truthful stories.
ODYSSEY staff manual website
From legal advice to AP Style, my Media Group's staff manual includes all the information a staffer and editor may need to fulfill their duties. At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, our Cabinet, including me, reworked the manual into a website to ensure maximum efficiency and accessibility for all forms of vocabulary terms and legal references. Click the image to view the full website.
media literacy assignment, Sept. 2024
In Sept. 2024, I worked closely with my adviser to formulate this assignment for our Production Staff. This consisted of gathering award-winning stories on the national level and finding ways they could apply to our platform. News literacy not only comes from studying stories being published on reputable outlets, but also studying what publications just like are accomplishing. With ideas bouncing around, we went into the first cycle with fresh ideas on what stories we could pull off in our magazine.
the importance of fact-checking
gaps between glads, Jan. 2022
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When "Gaps between Glads" was published, the article received a lot of backlash from administration at my school because of the allegations made in the piece. Our Cabinet and I, as well as my co-byliner Gretchen Hinger, had to approach the situation with our proof that we executed the story ethically and truthfully. Before the piece was published, we fact-checked various times, and continued to after admin voiced their concerns. We knew we had published the truth, but this was something that those around us had doubted. This really showed my freshman self how vital it is to fact check information, a lesson I continue to remember and learn from.
examining safety in sports, Oct. 2024
As I was working with a sophomore on staff to evaluate safety measures at sporting events, we were struggling to find concrete information. Our school administrators were hesitate to provide answers and we couldn't access specific dates for when some safety measures were implemented. Regardless, we continued looking for sources that could provide use concrete information, and we eventually got in touch with our district's police chief. Here, we finally received the information we were being refused. On a personal level, I even exercised my first amendment right as a student journalist and filed an opened record request to gain access to information filed by my local community police department.
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