As the Web Editor-in-Chief, about 90% of my job is following my leadership philosophy. Learning leadership is actually an important life skill, which is something I developed a lot through being on the editorial board, leading first fives, big projects, and bonding at conventions. I’m very proud of all the work displayed because each entry challenged who I am as a person, and really, I am a better person because of each entry. I can’t ever take leadership and collaboration for granted. Check out my work below.
Leadership philosophy
My main goal in life is to stay true to myself. My leadership philosophy is something I take very seriously because I want to make sure to not shy away from my personality and naturally be the building block for my other staff mates to get better at journalism. Here is my philosophy:
When I manage, I always assess the other person’s ideas and I usually know where they are coming from through my thoughtfulness. Through action, I’m diligent in making sure those people’s ideas are heard. Also, the last thing I want to be is a micromanager. Being an overbearing leader can create unnecessary pressure to complete tasks when ultimately, that task doesn’t hold much weight. Instead, I entrust my staff to get the job done and congratulate them when they complete their tasks through appreciation from the staff and I. However, when the tasks do hold a lot of weight, I make sure editors are staying on the right track with direct communication, like specific due dates, and willingness to compromise if an obstacle comes forth. When solving major problems, I make sure that the person is doing okay emotionally before solving the journalism task at hand through in-person communication. From my experience, journalism has taken a toll on me emotionally when tensions run high. So, I try my best to help them with words of encouragement and give them space if needed. Above all else, I want my staff to feel heard and seen, because they put in the work. They deserve my respect.
Keeping people on the same page
From my experience, having communication with your staff members is possibly the make or break of a staff. Without proper communication, no way I would be able to lead a staff the way I have. For our staff, we communicate through text group chats for conversation when we are not talking in-person. We also use Trello to communicate how far along articles are through the editing process. Most importantly, our staff has an editorial board. We have meetings every week to discuss issues and goals regarding our staff. Together, the editorial board makes decisions for the staff. Sometimes, sure, the editors-in-chief have final say on a few things including editing, but the editorial board is the true nucleus of the staff. Here are a few things we focus on during our meetings, led by managing editor/board chair Eden Pepos.
- Review last week’s agenda. Our board likes to review our previous discussion. I find this really important because we want to revisit our past experiences in case there are any more clarifying questions. This helps us move on and make sure everyone is heard.
- Last meeting follow-up. Most times, the things we talk about in our previous meetings are ongoing projects. Again, we want to make sure to either tie loose ends or continue what needs to be discussed. This is prevalent during a print cycle because it’s a big project to create a magazine that needs all hands on deck.
- New business. Now, we open things up to discuss anything new. This space is for pitching new ideas with each other and starting new projects. For example, I’ve wanted to push for an event calendar so our staff can go out to all these school events to get pictures and boost our social media. This was a new project I pitched during the “new business” section of our meeting.
- Action items. Last but not last, our board assigns “action items” to fellow board members. These are basically objectives that a board member has to accomplish and putting on the board agenda helps the board member be more accountable because we all know what they have to be doing. Ultimately, this helps us keep our board accountable
Going to national conventions
Going to the JEA/NSPA national journalism conventions is the ultimate team bonding event. Whether going to sessions with my friends, going out to lunch, or winning cool awards together, conventions have provided some of my core memories as a person. I’ve gone to four conventions, and each one has served unique memories. Yes, I’ve won some awards, learned a lot of cool things, but more importantly, I was able to grow relationships within the staff. I think building bigger relationships with staff members has a lot of benefits including added perspective, which to me, is super important. Having that kind of perspective on the staff helps my decision-making because I like to have the best interest of the people in mind. With that in mind, here are my favorite parts of going to conventions.
- Going to sessions with friends. For the people that go to these conventions, they love journalism. Learning something new we are passionate about is a shared experience that I really enjoy and never forget.
- Quiz Bowl. Competing against other high schools with some of my friends is always super fun. I never forget those late-night study cram sessions before the big test and buzzer rounds. During my junior year at the fall convention, I was on the second team as the 16th seed (the last seed). I’ll never forget answering four questions in the round, narrowly losing to first seeded Torrey Pines by one question.
- Going out to eat. Just talking and trying food with my friends is something I’ve always liked doing. In San Francisco during the spring convention last year, I really enjoyed trying the sourdough and chowder with my friends.
- Touring the city. As is tradition, wlhsNOW convention-goers tour the city and see cool stuff. My favorite city to tour was easily Boston because of all the different kinds of American history. Having stepped on such old ground is kind of crazy just thinking about it. I also enjoyed touring a couple of baseball stadiums (Fenway Park and Oracle Park) because of my adviser’s obsession with baseball.
- Celebrating our accomplishments. Once the convention is over, it’s always fun going over our competitions and giving each other a pat on the back for all our hard work. This is just one reason why conventions are such a big team building experience for me.
Journalist of the week
It’s important to give people recognition for their hard work. Some people spend a ton of time working on journalism and our staff doesn’t want those people to go unnoticed. So, during my senior year, we started a new tradition: journalist of the week. It’s simple, but it covers the bases. Along with their dedicated social media post, the journalist of the week gets a special announcement and their own journalist of the week crown. The goal of this exercise is for the journalist to know that we have noticed the hard work they have put in and that we, myself and the editorial board, want to go out of our way to give recognition. I think this is important for any staff because I think it improves team morale and it could motivate the journalist of the week to be more motivated to do more journalism. From what we know right now, this award has been a success because it has generated positive competition between staff-mates and it has improved the staff’s ability to get work done. Without a journalist of the week, I don’t see us having one of the best websites and news magazines in the west. This is an activity we look forward to every week: the crowning of the journalist of the week.
Snap cup and other silly activities
At the end of every news cycle, our staff has a tradition where we give each other anonymous compliments. This tradition takes form through shreds of former-Amplifier paper, a coffee mug, and the snapping of the fingers. This tradition is called “snap cup”. The tradition is from the movie Legally Blonde’s snap cup and it’s always been a staff activity since I was a sophomore. The process of snap cup includes shredding paper into bits of paper, handing out the bits of paper to all staff members, having all staff members write a compliment to another staff member on the bits of paper without saying who it was from and then we collect all the compliments. All the compliments go into our special snap cup coffee mug and then we (either me or another editor) pull out the bits of paper and say them out loud. All staff members then cheer and snap.
This is one of my favorite activities as a journalist. Being able to laugh with your staff members is something I will always remember being with wlhsNOW. Sure, there are a lot of memories I’ve gained through my awards and journalism work, but none of that is as memorable as laughing and sharing joy with your friends. Snap cup has also allowed the staff to receive recognition for their hard work. Like journalist of the week, snap cup helps staff members be seen and possibly motivate them to keep going. Above all else, snap cup is an integral part of the wlhsNOW publication and I really hope this tradition keeps getting passed down.
Besides snap cup, wlhsNOW also has other little silly traditions that involve my enthusiastic adviser Glenn Krake. After every story that is published to the website, Krake proclaims in a song that the story is published to let the whole staff know. Since he has a few guitars in our room, it is quite easy for Krake to keep singing as long as he wants too. He has also sung when it’s a birthday for a given staff member. Even if we are tired and it’s Monday afternoon, Krake will make us sing. His positivity usually spreads. This has always helped our staff be in good spirits and I can’t thank Krake enough for his constant enthusiasm.
Leading first fives
While being in a leadership position, I’ve learned to teach students specialized skills through what wlhsNOW likes to call “first fives”. These are slideshow presentations that aim to teach staff members beginner/essential techniques on a given topic. For example, as the photo editor in my junior year, I led a couple of presentations for taking photos and editing photos. I found this as a valuable experience because I haven’t been put in that kind of situation before. To that point, I was always the learner and it felt gratifying to teach my skills to other journalists.
Board members are basically required to make a first five presentations at some point. Teaching the first fives had an unexpected impact on me as a journalist and leader in general. I wasn’t always willing to go up to the class and speak loud in front of a bunch of people. Honestly, I found some of it kinda scary and eerie. Also, it sometimes felt embarrassing and it felt even worse when I saw people distracted and not even paying attention to what I was saying. However, first fives were the thing that got me out of my comfort zone. Now, I feel extremely comfortable speaking out loud in front of the class. Overall, first fives improved my confidence, which I thought I didn’t really have.
Practically though, I got more practice with Google Slides. Below, there are all the Google Slides I at least helped make. Check them out and see the kind of content I teach in front of the class!
Joseph Murphy's Portfolio 