One of the easiest ways to build an online presence for the school paper is to start a blog, or even several blogs, that focus on specific topics, such as high school sports or fashion.
Depending on the school and student interests, niche blogs of any kind add value and immediacy to the paper’s news, entertainment or sports coverage. They can also be a great format to bring attention to longer analytical pieces in the print edition.
I spent the past couple of days in award-winning journalism adviser Janet Elbom’s classroom at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy at LBJ High School in Austin.
One of the students who works on the school’s paper, The Liberator, is also a nationally recognized blogger. High school junior Isabel Legate has been featured in Teen Vogue as well as in local fashion magazines for her art, music and fashion blog Animal Talk, shown above.
Legate’s blog was created outside of journalism class and isn’t affiliated with The Liberator; everything she learned about blogging has been through trial and error. She took some time to share what she’s learned along the way and how her writing changes from the web to the printed page.
The inspiration for Animal Talk came about in middle school, when she and a friend created a fashion magazine. She’d always been interested in web design and html, so taking the topic to the Internet was a natural progression. A few years later, her blog gets about 100 hits a day, and that’s without Legate promoting it through social networking and other means because of her busy high school schedule and a new side project — creating a print magazine on a similar subject.
A blog requires regular upkeep and constant research, so the writer needs to have a passion for the topic. For Legate, it’s fashion and art. Her tastes are changing a bit, so lately the blog has had more of an art focus rather than fashion.
She’s always looking for blog ideas.
“I read tons of other blogs, and then if I’m out and I see an artist that’s really cool, (or) I notice a trend that’s going on that’s really strange or interesting, then I’ll do something on that,” Legate said.
Reading other fashion and art blogs was the best way she found to figure out what works and doesn’t work, making her blog better: “Because if you’re not getting a lot of hits, and you’re not getting what you want out of the blog, then visually it’s not exciting, or what you’re saying isn’t that exciting.”
She suggests students “look at other blogs for inspiration but don’t try to mimic them.”
Also, “don’t try to sell yourself out with ads.”
Legate has received email offers to make money by blogging about particular products or from ads for things like weight loss pills that have nothing to do with her blog. She limits the ads to products that are relevant to art or fashion.
“I just feel like my blog is about my ideas, and I don’t want it to be a superficial blog, so I try not to post where clothing items are from,” she said. “It’s not about consuming for me; I want it to be more about getting inspiration and creating.”
Legate’s blog is a project outside of her journalism class, but the blogging has helped her when writing for the school newspaper. She’s developed a strong writer’s voice, which she admittedly has to tone down when writing for the print newspaper.
“For the newspaper, I have to be a lot nicer,” she said. “I kind of write in a funny, satirical way on my blog that I can’t necessarily do (in the paper), but I think it does help though because it makes what I do write at the Liberator more interesting.”
