Case Study: The Bagpipe
The Bagpipe is Highland Park High School's student newspaper (Dallas, Texas). Running for over 75 years, The Bagpipe has recently won numerous national and local awards, carrying its weight as one of the best high school newspapers in the country.
We conducted a brief interview with the adviser of The Bagpipe, Kent Smith. Below are the unedited questions and answers.
What was the organizational situation of the staff before you started using Newsroom Director? (meaning was it disorganized, people leaving notes on chalkboards, etc.)
Quite frankly, there was no real organization to the staff when I arrived. There was a lot of random tacking of notes that were rarely noticed in a timely manner and word of mouth. Our staffers crammed three copies of their drafts into folders labeled for the people responsible for editing those drafts on that particular deadline. Since a different trio edited drafts on different deadlines, the drafts often ended up in the wrong folders.
About how many sheets of paper did you save after switching to Newsroom Director? How much money did it save you?
We were looking at a minimum of 500 sheets per draft at three drafts per issue. There were nine issues. That's 13,500 sheets. However, if myself or section editors wanted to check progress the staffer had to print out additional sheets. I would estimate that we actually used around 20,000 sheets of paper just on draft editing alone. That doesn't include the tons of other things we can do on Newsroom that previously required paper also.
How has Newsroom Director changed the process of editing drafts? Has it saved time or created more of a hassle?
Newsroom saves me about 12 hours of work per week minimum. I can grade drafts much faster by typing edits instead of looking for open spaces to scribble in short notes that rarely got my point across if they were legible. My staffers were more efficient also because they knew their assignments immediately and had a good description of the assignment right in front of them. They could immediately message myself, their editors or their section editors if they had any questions about their assignments. There was no losing notes, forgetting to write down the assignment or hoping to catch a section editor from another class period for answers to questions. Therefore, the quality of their first drafts increased dramatically.
How has the messaging affected your communication with the staffers?
This has made it much easier for my staffers to be contacted. I can send out notices that have to be read before they can finish logging in. This way no one has an excuse not to know about information I have posted for the entire class even if they missed school that day.
What is your favorite aspect or feature about Newsroom Director?
My favorite aspect of it is how much easier it has made grading. I set the deadlines before the issue cycle begins and Newsroom reminds them a deadline is coming up a day or two before the deadline hits. It shows me the exact date and time students turn in their work. They can no longer say I misplaced their draft or they turned it in the day before and I didn't see it. I can show their parents exactly when it was turned in. I also have all of their drafts complete with all of my edits and notes to compare and gauge the writer's progress.
If you could explain to other advisers how Newsroom Director has affected your staff and its structure, what would you say? Would you recommend it to others, why or why not?
I honestly don't know how I got by without Newsroom Director with a staff this large. It was a nightmare and I had very little time to spend with my family. This has made it so much easier to keep my staff informed and has streamlined our entire process. If you look at our paper at the beginning of the year and toward the end, you'll see a huge increase in writing quality and you'd find we spent far less time outside of class working on it. I attribute that directly to Newsroom Director.