Journalism Deep Dive

by Valeria Rojas and Krissy Hetherington

Redwood Gigantea is Redwood High School’s newspaper and our goal is to make sure students and followers of the Gigantea are informed with information that relates to our school and our county. 

As Chief Editor and as a senior I, Valeria Rojas want to make sure that this year, Redwood Gigantea is acknowledge for all the hard work we put in to create these stories about our school, city and sometimes nation. Everyday our journalists walk in, grab a laptop and start writing our stories. The thing is as we write our stories, we’re already thinking about the next event to write about because we want to make sure our content is up to date with current events happening around our campus.

I, Krissy Hetherington am also a Chief Editor and hope to lead and challenge student writers with the help of Valeria to make this year’s newspaper the best it has ever been. I hope to learn more and become a better sports writer for PagMeter and still help mentor students who are determined and interested in journalism. I want to make sure everyone is involved this year and keep up on the “slackers” so we each do an equal part to contribute. I want this newspaper to touch all parts of Redwood and be a positive outlet of information concerning students and their lives on and off campus.

“Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’ ”
— Jef Mallett

Our lead editor for our Photography section, Stephanie Sandoval, 19′, doesn’t just want to make sure we have pictures for our website but it’s much more than that, “I want to teach Journalism 1 students how to take pictures and to help them develop a gallery…and show them how there is so much behind photography along with how important it is to the Gigantea.”

Lead editor Amanda See, 19′ is in charge of making sure that the Arts and Entertainment section is constantly updating our readers on what’s new in the dance programs, drama program, choir, and the music program. “With the role of being a leader, I will make sure to edit the articles of the section with my best efforts. I will also include the latest trends of arts/entertainment in the media.” She also plans to personally work one on one with the Journalism 1 to make sure they produce the best content before their deadline.

Redwood Gigantea not only runs a school newspaper, but a magazine is in the works which is led by the lead editor of the Clubs & Lifestyles section, Makenzie Collins, 19′, “My expectation for this year is to accurately cover all clubs and extracurricular activities going on outside of school. I want to take my words into action and actually do something with the magazine idea and bring it to life. Along with creating it, I will coach future writers to keep it alive.”

Annabelle Williamson, ’21, is our lead editor for Government and Politics section and as a sophomore it’s a lot of pressure we have put on her but it’s because we trust her and know she’s going to do an amazing job. Her and Kaleah Syvirathphan, ’21, are going to edit their stories together. They will also both check in on the students who signed up for the stories and make sure they have appropriate questions for their topic. They plan to post 2-3 stories per week. Overall, the final edit and review over the stories will be done by Williamson before they are sent to the Chief Editors.

“The courage in journalism is sticking up for the unpopular, not the popular.”  -Geraldo Rivera

The sports section is led by Brandon Teela, ’21. For this year, he plans to keep tabs on all his writers and staff to make every game gets written about. He told us, “Every sport will be written about this year and I will guide and edit each writer and their stories. If they need help with questions or brainstorming I can help with that too. Have every game day story done the day after the game. Also, photo gallery every two weeks for all of sports. Also I will keep a calendar of every game from every sport.”

Mackenzie Potts, ’19, lead editor for the Opinion column has an important job to make sure all perspectives are shown towards a specific topic. She’s expected to touch all parts of the campus and get in depth interviews from students and coach her writers through the process of describing their feelings about a particular subject. Personally as an editor, she plans to stay on top of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors and make sure all stories are published by deadlines.

Last but definitely not least, is our infamous Podcasting column led by Leah Navarro, 21′. She plans to really know and understand how all the equipment works, be able to update weekly, and put more detail in the stories she chooses to highlight. She said, “I will need to be up to date with current events that happen at redwood.  Getting more people involved with podcast and turning it into something bigger is what I would like to accomplish this year.”

The Redwood Gigantea, established in 1955, has come a very long way since the flimsy stapled pamphlets of information. It started out a simple base for getting news and upcoming events around campus and now is online and constantly being updated.

The way the Journalism 1 and 2 class is combined and fully functioning to this day is still be modified. Our process and ideas involving new changes include, more leadership roles, group collaboration, bigger stories, and expanding into other territories of reporting news like podcasting and a magazine.

Tags: rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism