Inside Scoop - Training with 20 pages

Inside Scoop is a weekly column about the operation of the Spartan Daily, San Jose State's student newspaper.

This past week myself and the fall 2019 editorial board shadowed the current editors, getting a feel for what our jobs will be like. This mostly went according to plan, with nearly all of the new editors getting hands on experience with pitching stories, editing content, and laying out pages.

This all culminated with a 20-page special edition about "Home" (25MB pdf). Tuesday and Wednesday evenings were pretty crazy, by the end I had edited every page except two, and one of those I skipped because it only had stories I had written on it.

20 pages was pretty ambitious, and I wonder whether we would have put out a better product with only 16 pages, cutting some stories. In any case, the volume of editing required was pretty beneficial for me.

This coming week we're going to be taking over production of the newspaper. People keep asking me whether I'm excited or overwhelmed, and the answer is simply neither. It just feels like the next thing to do. Also I'm pretty tired.

In other news, The New York Times published the winning essay for the Modern Love college essay contest. It's amazing, and I teared up while reading it.

I plan on keeping my own entry to myself for now, though I'm glad I wrote and submitted it. Thanks to my friends who proofread and gave me advice on it beforehand.

Three Spartan Daily issues left - nearly ready to finish out the semester!