Editor-in-chief, photographer, writer
@communicatorchs
"The Communicator" has been an established outlet since 1974. After countless awards for our print magazine and website, our adviser decided that she wanted social media to be a third publication. Alongside two others, I worked to develop social media as a platform with three key goals: embed high-level design and photography into our posts; to break news accurately and quickly; and to connect students and staff through multimedia. After a year of working on it all, I knew I wanted to return as a social media EIC as a senior. Scroll down to see some of the work I've created and cultivated.
To the left is the first iteration of "Homeschooled," a constant I came up with that is a tour of an individual's desk. I interviewed my friend and coached her on how to take the photos, and it was one of the first posts that went up within the new dynasty of our social media platforms.
Below was the first #FashionFriday to go up on the Instagram I did the videography/editing, as well as the photos and caption-writing. It was a post that I was very proud of; the video editing took me a significant amount of time, but pushed me towards a new love for video as a multimedia form. I also put a lot of time into the design of the post itself, and #FashionFriday still has a very similar look to it.
The first breaking news post of the year was an announcement of the new Forum Council presidents. The design shown left is one of the first versions of our breaking news template; whenever students see a black background with rainbow stripes, they know that the post is immediately relevant to Community High School students.
"Picture This" is a go-to post for original content. I reached out to Madison for an interview about a photo in her camera roll, and produced the post to the right. The post type allows for a snapshot into someone's life, and it's a deeper post rather than an overview of an individual.
Michigan Interscholastic Press Association: Personality Profile Social Media Coverage, 3rd place.
Another form of original content is pushing out articles that have gone up on our website. We encourage staff to push out relevant pieces and things that impacted them or could help their community. The post to the left is a short look into an article I wrote on local teens who ran mask businesses. They donated the profits to charity, and the masks were themed to our local attractions.
To the right is a "Thanksgiving Letter to Tracy." Tracy is our wonderful adviser, and she has all of her students write "Letters to Tracy" at the beginning and end of each semester. I wanted to come up with a way to thank her on each publication; for social media, I compiled a collection of videos from current and previous staff members detailing why they were grateful for Tracy. The post resulted in a lot of community engagement, and lots of thanks to Tracy.
This post was a news-feature on spring athletics. The local Board of Education mandated weekly covid-19 testing for all athletes, and the post focuses on the Skyline High School women's tennis team. I took the photos for the post as well as worked on the reporting with a fellow EIC. It helped our community better understand the BOE's thinking and what athletes were required to do to participate in their sports.
The post to the right is the first post that went up for the 2021-2022 school year. There were many questions that students had as the return to a five-day school week approached. The post is in the up-to-date template for our breaking news posts. It focused on all of the aspects of our school that would be returning, and what would be changed in our covid-19 conscious environment.
The post to the left is another example of a web article push. I wrote an article in April of 2021 about a girl who thrifted out of necessity rather than to be trendy. We wanted to bring awareness to the importance of thrift stores as the holidays approached, so I wrote up a teaser post on the article and linked back to it.
The most recent IGTV video I put together was for a constant that crosses over between social media and our magazine, "Style This." The IGTV video featured Stella, and she takes viewers through her process of styling a plain white tank top. Viewers hear about her fashion journey and influences, and connect with her personality through video and audio.