It’s the time when many high school newsrooms are reconfiguring roles for next year. Wanting to get a head start, I jotted down some job descriptions for a newly converged newsroom, which I hope will eventually accurately describe the program I will join in the fall. These roles will evolve with student input as the year progresses.

These are based on the following principles/missions/beliefs:

• Some might be more involved with print or more involved with online, but everyone will have some kind of input on and responsibility for the website.
• Neither online or the website will be an after-thought. But for this all to work, web has to come first.
• Journalists today need to learn how to do everything first and specialize later.
• I’m a stickler for style, grammar, clarity and continuity, so it’s key to have a copy chief as in professional newsrooms.

I’d love input on how other schools do this. Here’s one example of a successful program, and JEA Digital Media has a section devoted to structuring and training staff.

Newsroom Roles

Editor-in-chief: Responsible for the overall production of newspaper and website. Oversees editors and ensures all sections and aspects of print and online work together.

Copy/Design Chief: Responsible for working with editors on the design of the print newspaper and website. Writes final headlines and copy edits print and online stories for clarity, grammar and AP Style.

Example of form created with Google Docs for next year's students.

Web editor: Responsible for overseeing the website, including the design, content and technical issues. Works with editors and other staff members to ensure website has up-to-date content, multimedia components and increasing page hits. Teaches editors how to upload content to the web. Keeps up with new trends and technology and teaching these to the staff.

Photo editor: Responsible for overseeing photography in print and online. Assigns photos and works with photographers on editing and choosing photos and to create photo essays in print and galleries online.

Multimedia editor: Responsible for multimedia components of the website. Works with and oversees multimedia journalists and other staff members on multimedia projects. Oversees the official Youtube site. Includes creating multimedia components and keeping up with new trends and technology and teaching these to the staff.

News, feature, entertainment, sports, opinion editors: Responsible for section coverage in print and online. Works with writers and other staff members to assign and create stories and multimedia components for print and online. Edits stories for print and online, including blog entries, and designs print pages.

Social media editor: Responsible for creating the newspaper’s social media strategy and serves as the main voice for the official Twitter and Facebook pages. Oversees and organizes posting on these sites by newspaper students. Facilitates conversation with readers on the website and on the social media pages, including organizing live chats and filtering comments on these pages.

Print/online ad managers: Responsible for all aspects of print/online advertising, including design, placement on website and technical issues (for online). Sells ads and oversees business aspect of newspaper students who sell print/online ads.

Non-editors rotate through the following roles during the first semester then specialize the second semester.

Writers: Responsible for writing articles for print and the website. Includes working with multimedia journalists to come up with ideas for multimedia components to go along with stories.

Photographers: Responsible for shooting and editing photos for the newspaper and website. Writes captions for photos. Includes photo essays for the print edition and photo galleries for the website. Work with multimedia journalists and/or writers to create audio slideshows.

Multimedia journalists: Responsible for producing multimedia components of the website to go along with stories and as stand-alone projects. Includes but not limited to creating podcasts, audio slideshows, videos, interactive databases and maps.

The past few weeks have been slow on the blogging front, mostly because I haven’t had much to write about in terms of high school journalism. That changes today, ready or not.

This blank planner is about to be filled.

This week I begin preparing for my first year as a high school journalism adviser at Dripping Springs High School. I couldn’t ask for a better place to begin my teaching career, and it’s fitting because I once covered the same area as a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. Now that the excitement of being employed full-time again has worn off, I’m faced with the exciting and challenging task of incorporating multimedia and digital journalism into the print program.

Having watched this same transformation in progress at a daily newspaper, I’m hoping to emulate some of the things that worked and avoid some that caused unnecessary challenges. In the coming weeks, I’ll post lessons, curriculum and plans that I come up with, as well as good examples from professional and scholastic journalism. I’ll also share ideas from my experience this summer teaching a news reporting class at the local community college and an online/multimedia training for high school advisers and editors.

Where to start? Last week’s post on JEA Digital Media, Moving to the Internet – 10 Stops Along the Way, is giving me a good road map.