Cross-platform editing and producing
Editing is what made me first fall in love with journalism. Since I was 16, I’ve been an editor for several publications through school and extracurriculars, and before that, I was editing my own stories at home. Now, I’ve found a path in my academic career that has brought me back to editing in a multi-platform scope. While I enjoy both the micro and macro editing roles, I really enjoy being a content editor, especially in arts and culture. Below are examples of both written editing and graphics editing.
I edited and produced this profile written for Vox Magazine’s Sept./Oct. 2022 issue. We started with a first draft that was in good shape but needed a bit more information and some cleaning up. The finished, printed page is pictured to the left
Profile editing
Initial feedback:
“Hi Emma! I thought this was a great start on the story. I like how you balanced a bit of the book’s plot and the profile-ing/characterization of Audrey herself with the heart of the story, which is a young queer author using her debut novel to provide more representation to literature set in Missouri. You have fantastic quotes from all of your sources that move the story forward and add to what you’ve written. I think there are parts of the article right now that feel a bit wordy, which makes it hard for what you’re trying to say to really reach the reader. I tried to help in places I thought could be more concise to keep the reader moving forward. Overall, I think you have a lot of the information that we need for the story—I didn’t have many places as a reader that I felt lost, confused or like I was missing something. For the next draft, I would make sure to clean up some parts so you can really reiterate the purpose of the article (highlighting the representation and Missouri roots of this book). Really great work!! —Sophie Stephens”
In addition to providing the reporter with comments on the original document that indicated specific changes we needed to make, we leave overall feedback and reviews on every article draft to make sure everyone is clear on where the next draft should be. Here was how I summarized my edits for the reporter.
These are two examples of the comments I left for the reporter:
Feature editing
Vox Magazine runs two features in every monthly issue. These take an increased level of time commitment, organization and communication between editors, visual teams and reporters.
Graphics Editing
Through one of my classes, cross platform editing and producing 1, we are assigned editing roles for a lower-level journalism course. I edited this designer’s graphic, which was created to run in the Homecoming-themed special section of the Columbia Missourian.
The first draft had a good start on the design layout, but I felt the essence of the graphic was the illustrated map. I asked the student to play around with colors, and suggested flipping the location of the map and the tips so the visual hierarchy supported the illustration before the text. An additional draft of the graphic included a purple and yellow color palette, and I advised the student to consider different colors not only for printing reasons, but also because of the theme of the section, which was Mizzou Homecoming. To the right is the final draft:
