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Jane Ripps
Managing Editor, ODYSSEY Media Group
news
I strongly believe that any new journalist should begin focusing on their news writing as it builds a foundation of efficiency and effectiveness as a storyteller. Although it was initially tricky for me to master in the Fall of 2021, I have learned how to pick out informative quotes and get to the point throughout the various beats I have produced for our website.
Now, as the Managing Editor, I continue to challenge myself as a reporter in my Administrative beat. This monthly brief requires me to be up-to-date on administrative matters at my high school to keep readers informed on this area of news.
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examining graduation rates
When the Clarke County School District graduate rates for the 2023-24 school year were released in October, I set out to get reactions from my school's administration and teachers. I had to streamline the information as best as possible to make the increase clear for readers, and allow the quotes to tell the story of where improvement is still to be made.
new year, new schedule
Given the increase in students at my school for the 2024-2025 school year, an extra minute was added to the bell schedule for each transition from class to class. I set out to gain more information on this extra minute from administration, and discovered that because the student body was growing so rapidly, it was becoming physically impossible to get to class in the previous amount of time.
21st century
In the Spring of 2024, I discovered an initiative at one of our feeder middle schools that was offering immersive experiences to students, from tutoring to step team. I paid a visit to the school, and had the chance to talk with one of the program leaders and students apart of the program. News goes beyond the walls of my high school, and reaching out into my community was an informative step in my news writing.
a new form of support
At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, a new position was created at my high school to support struggling underclassmen. To gain more information on what the job entails, I interviewed my school's administration and teachers who inhibited the job. My research also included the study of the national initiative called "Opportunity Culture."
class registration
At the 2021-22 school year, I set out to write about registering for new classes-- an upcoming initiative for students that allowed them to pick their classes for the fall. I struggled to write straightforward stories and stay in the word count, but it was stories such as these that engrained the inverted pyramid in my mind and allowed me to streamline my writing.
introducing AP Precalculus
For the Fall semester of the 2023-2024 school year, I was assigned the social studies and math department for my monthly beat. For this story, I interviewed a teacher about the new course AP Precalculus that we began offering this year. I had to do a lot of research for this story, because it is a new course that most readers don't know anything about. With this in mind, I centered my quotes and writing around this and "introduced" the class.
GHP selection begins
To cover the beginning of the selection process for the Georgia Governor's Honors Program, I wrote a short news brief. I have to do a lot of research on the program for this story as well as seamlessly tie in a lot of dates and information throughout the writing. This challenged me, but ultimately it turned out clean.
recognizing the issues
Coverage of important school wide topics was something I worked to achieve for my monthly administration beats. A lot of my story topics required a lot of research, which is definitely true for this story I wrote about graduation rates at my school. After talking to our administration, I found out that a lot of seniors and freshmen were struggling to pass their classes, so I took that and went with it. I had to fact-check and create a piece with solutions to this issue.
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