Paly journalism is meant to represent the student voice. There are 11 regularly publishing journalism publications in Paly, with other ones phasing in and out in the Incubator class where students can create their own publication. This variety demonstrates a diverse array of perspectives of the student body.
That is, if someone read all of them.
The fast-paced culture of Paly is no secret. We go from attending school, to attending extracurriculars, to doing homework, all on a four-year loop. Some students prefer to spend most of their time with their friends, some students study every waking moment of their lives, and some students opt for something in between.
When living with such packed schedules, however, there will not be enough time to do everything we want — and some things will end up overlooked.
Journalism publications are one of them. According to a Campanile survey of 82 people, only 45% of people read school publications. There was also a heavy skew in which publications tended to be read.
While it can be argued that 45% readership is significant, I do not think publications are doing a good job showing diverse student voices when the skew is so heavy.
According to Miller’s Law, humans can only remember 5-9 items at a time. When there are more publications than there are slots in a human’s working memory, people are bound to forget some of them and because of this portions of the student body go unheard.
Our stories are not just for the students, however. Journalism is also a way for administrators to get insight into the student populace. Ironically, once there are too many publications, there are too few student voices as the staff have even less time than the students to read every publication.
To fix this, I suggest that the publications reshuffle and consolidate by general topics. For example, The Campanile has a sports section. However, Viking is a magazine that focuses entirely on sports. If one were to look for sports news, it is unlikely they would look at both Viking and Campanile, especially since the stories may overlap. Under my proposal, Campanile’s sports section, for example, would merge into Viking.
Because student journalists often write for multiple sections in their publication, I suggest allowing students to write for any publication of their choosing at any time. Cycle times would remain up to the discretion of the publications’ editors-in-chiefs, so the responsibility would lie with the writers to make sure they get their work in on time.
This reshuffling would hopefully lower the total number of publications and allow students and staff to more easily engage with the content of a particular publication that appeals to their niche. While integrating this proposal into the current system would be jarring at best, I think it would be a much better way to decrease skew and showcase the perspectives of the student body.
