School publications are just one of the many ways that a student can practice and hone their skills for writing, especially news or feature articles. Joining school publications give students a deeper sense of importance towards responsible journalism, which includes writing factual stories, exposing information that students and other people concerned may find useful, and treating every story unprejudiced.
Writing for the school paper is not exclusive to students majoring in Journalism, Mass Communication or other related course. Writing effective and informative news or feature articles is a skill that can be taught and learned. However, there are certain attitudes that a person who want to engage in the said discipline should establish.
First is the sense of differentiating a news-worthy story from the not. An aspiring journalist should learn that not all stories are interesting. Study the impact of the story in contemporary culture, the target demographics that would find the story appealing, the proximity of the event to the journalist and his/her target audience, and the distinct feature of the story that sets it apart from other news (or what is known as "man bites dog" stories). For example, the establishment of a 100-story building is not new, but a 100-story building with just stairs and no elevators (as ridiculous as it may sound) is more interesting.
Then, there is the need to learn news writing. News writing is not like writing an essay for an assignment, though proper punctuation, grammar, and spelling are also essential. In news writing, the reporter must never cite his/her opinion about a particular story (the Opinion or Editorial Section columnists can only do that). The reporter also must not mention a company name (this is allowed only in special cases) because it may lead to either advertising or libel, depending on the tone and slant of the written story.
Sadly, some school papers have limited budget to produce issues monthly. Printing thousands of copies of the paper is easier said than done for students. A good alternative is
flyer printing, which can be cheaper and more convenient than newsletter printing. If there are a small number of news-worthy stories, students can just
print flyers to disseminate news to the students. Newsletter in form of flyers may contain five to six news stories and are printed in both sides.
Louise, or Myjel as how she wants to be called, once thought that life is a box of sweet chocolates. Until a soldier ant named Reality crawled to it and bit her butt. She plans to go to Japan and put an end to the person who created their eye-candy, terrible actors. She refuses to name who those people are. But for now, she has to be a Content Writer.
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