Spring 2024 Reflections

Minor Reflections

Writing and Reporting:

• This semester, I continued to produce many of our scripts for our video shows. This involved finding news and announcements around campus, extracting the most important pieces of information from it, and rewriting the announcement for the bulletin. Additionally, I wrote many tosses from the anchor desk to packages, in addition to helping others on staff write their own tosses for their packages. In terms of reporting, this semester, I produced two stories: a feature on Paly’s Child Development program, and a news piece on a proposal to add bike lanes to El Camino Real. While I didn’t work on as many packages compared to the first semester, I’m glad that I was able to report on two last stories with Spencer, Sarp, Grace, and Jessi.

Broadcast Journalism:

• While the InFocus morning show has not had a consistent location this semester, I’ve continued to support our filming process every Wednesday and Friday/Monday. My name has stayed in the on-air anchor calendar, as I did a few more PA and video show appearances. Additionally, I helped set up the equipment for our shows by putting up the light stands, connecting the ATEC switcher, giving the anchors the mics, among other things. I was happy to see a lot of different staff members, including the freshmen, stepping up with this process this semester, which allowed me to focus on supporting them and helping them gain more experience.

Editing, Leadership and Team Building:

• As I have over the past three years, I edited most of our video shows this past semester. This task involves gathering all the necessary elements for the show, including the raw recording, graphics, intro, and outro. As an executive producer, my team and I have continued to conduct live feedback sessions at the end of each package cycle. This has helped simplify the editing process for individual packages, as reporters can make edits based on whole class feedback, and then receive any small edits from an experienced staff member right before it airs. While I wished we had more team building events this semester, I do feel that, as a publication, we grew closer and became much more connected then we were previously.

Web and Social Media:

• This semester, I’ve continued to help our Web/User managers stat up to date with uploading packages on the InFocus website. Using a google sheet document to track the progress, I download packages from the past shows, upload them to Youtube, capture a thumbnail, and then create a new story in SNO. We also categorize each story (news, feature, sports, entertainment, etc…), along with filling in the bylines. On our Instagram, we have uploaded various segments including one about Paly’s career week and the end of year recap. Additionally, this semester, Spencer and I started a staff account for InFocus, which has helped promote the publication and share the behind the scenes at the same time.

Commitment to Diversity:

• This semester, InFocus has upheld our commitment to diversity through our coverage of different stories about campus and community news and events. After stressing the importance of reporting on a wider variety of topics in first semester, I believe we, as a staff, chose a good range of stories to cover. Through feature stories like the David Foster museum, Paly Adult School, a Paly student’s chicken business, and reporting on community events, such as Lantern Night and International Night, I feel as if we’ve given a diverse group of students and community members a voice. Additionally, I feel as if our news reporting has also drawn attention to a wide range of issues including the writer’s strike and PAUSD-PAEA contract negotiations.

Major Reflection

A lot has changed in the last five months in regards to the InFocus morning show. While we started the semester in our studio, using a one camera setup, we weren’t able to use this space after the long awaited equipment refresh in April. After a short hiatus due to issues with the studio installation, we started back up again in the newly reopened Tower Building. It was a challenge to adapt our previous set up to film in a new location. Running the camera feed through a switcher to OBS, we were able to film our morning broadcast again, albeit with some challenges such as getting the lighting right and getting the teleprompter effect without an actual one. With a few weeks to go in the semester, we were finally able to film in the refreshed studio. In the final show of my time on InFocus, I was able to anchor with Ellie. Reflecting on my contributions to the show this past year, I’m so glad that I decided to sit in the anchors chair and participate in front of the camera. This experience has helped me become more confident in my speaking abilities and hopefully I can continue anchoring as a member of my college’s TV station.

This semester, I didn’t produce hardly as many stories as I did in the first semester. This was mostly due to a months long project I worked on with Sarp. Throughout the semester, we worked on a documentary about the architectural history and development in Palo Alto. I felt as if this project was a good culmination of my time on InFocus, as we went through the entire process for producing a documentary style video. From researching our topic, to interviewing three sources, to going around Palo Alto to shoot b-roll, to filming stand ups, to writing a script, and finally editing. In the end, both of us were very proud of the final product. This documentary also served as the first long-form project I had done.

As my time on InFocus comes to end, I’m proud of the work this team and I have accomplished over the past four years. While it wasn’t smooth sailing with the Covid-19 pandemic forcing the shows on Zoom, multiple delays in the studio refresh project, and inconsistently working equipment, the people on the staff made my time all worth it. Getting to work with such talented people helped me develop my skills and find my passion in journalism. Looking ahead to college, I have declared my major in journalism and plan to join a broadcasting publication right away. I owe all of these plans to my transformative time on InFocus. From anchoring in front of the whole school community, to interviewing people who I would never had the chance to talk to otherwise, to live streaming school events, to producing shows two times a week, I will miss spending time with the InFocus staff and uploading the show to Youtube every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

MLMH Reflection

While reading over my MLMH reflection from last semester, I felt that, as a leadership team, we were able to hit a lot of the points I acknowledged from last semester in the past few months. This semester marked my sixth, and final, as an Executive Producer for InFocus. Over the course of this time, I have noticed a progression in my ability to help get things done in addition to being a servant leader.

This semester, I have continued to make an active effort to focus on the needs of others on the staff before I consider my own. This key principle of Burchard’s book on student leadership stuck with me when I read it earlier in the year. While I’m in class, I’m thinking about what I can do to increase the satisfaction and productivity of the overall group. If those two things are realized, only then can the publication thrive. I made sure to do this by checking in with everyone individually, asking them questions about how they were doing on their stories and life overall. Also, by making sure everyone felt involved in the class by suggesting to learn new roles in the studio, I hoped to contribute to creating a class environment that helped everyone get out of InFocus what they hoped to get out of the class.

Looking to the future of the publication, I know that InFocus is in great hands with Vincent and Henry as the new Executive Producers. Watching their growth over the past three years gave Ellie, Torii, and I confidence that they will step up right away in this role. Already, I have seen them in action, following Brendon Burchard’s six-step process for student leadership. Through envisioning ideas to improve the publication, giving direct feedback on others’ packages, enlist the help of other associates and managers to accomplish tasks, and more, they have already shown their knowledge of student leadership. I’m sure that when they read Burchard’s guide they will become even stronger in this important skill.