Staff Policy

Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader,

The Crescent Crier is a student newspaper, established in 1971, with the objective of sharing youth voices and reporting on local events for the Crescent Valley High School and greater community. We aim to provide CVHS students with informed, valid, and impartial news.

– The Crescent Crier Editorial Board

Table of Contents

  1. Letter from the Editors 
  2. Table of Contents 
  3. Staff Organization & Leadership
    1. Roles of Positions
  4. Journalism 101
    1. AP Style 
    2. Terms to know
    3. Other helpful resources
  5. Key School Information 
  6. Crier Mission & Policy Guide 
    1. Mission
      1. Staff goals 
    2. Corrections policy
    3. Ethics/Conflicts of interest 
  7. Production/Deadline Guide
  8. Sources & Interview Tips 
  9. Sources & Interview Tips, Continued 
  10. Public Records, Meetings, & FOIA
  11. Copyright Guide 
  12. Creating Good Surveys
  13. Guest Writers/Letters to the Editor 
  14. Staff Communication 
  15. Online/Social Media Guidelines 
  16. Evergreen Story Ideas 
  17. Organization & Publication Process 
  18. Recaps of Key Production Processes
  19. Budgetary Information 

Leadership & Staff Organization

Advisor:

  • Provide input
  • Send editions to publishers
  • Supervise

Editor-in-chief:

  • Coordinate editions
  • Generate improvement plans 
  • Lead meetings
  • Organize editions
  • Represent

Junior Editor:

  • Aid in development
  • Attend meetings
  • Further generate improvement plans 
  • Help organize editions
  • Prepare to become Editor-in-chief

Marketing Editor:

  • Aid in development
  • Attend meetings
  • Help organize editions
  • Manage funds 
  • Oversee outreach
    • Canva, Instagram, & Website

Layout Editor(s):

  • Aid in development 
  • Attend meetings
  • Help organize editions
  • Manage outreach
    • Canva
  • Oversee structure

Staff/writers

  • Attend meetings
  • Create media
    • Articles, videos, etcetera (etc)
  • Further generate improvement ideas
  • Provide coverage
  • Take part in other efforts as needed

Journalism 101

AP Style: How journalists decide on grammar/syntax/abbreviations/other stylistic decisions. 

  • Basically, the MLA of journalists!
  • AP Style guide basics: here (Purdue University)
  • AP Style cheat sheet here 
  • Some idiosyncrasies, mainly just following proper punctuation and then checking on dubious capitalizations, abbreviations, dates and times, etc. 
  • For example, in most cases, if you’ve said someone’s name once fully, only use their last name after that. 

Notes from National High School Journalism Convention, Fall 2020: Link

www.splc.org – Student Press Law Center (amazing resource) for legal questions (especially copyright and FOIA, but really almost anything!) 

Key Vocab:

  • A lede is the opening statement of an article or news story that summarizes the most important parts of a story. 
  • Ex: “Triumphant over the signing of their far-reaching $1.9 trillion stimulus package, Democrats are now starting to angle for a major political payoff that would defy history: Picking up House and Senate seats in the 2022 midterm elections, even though the party in power usually loses in the midterms.” Jonathan Martin, The New York Times, source. 
  • The inverted pyramid structure is the structure that journalists use to make their communication most effective. The lede starts it out, and then you move out in scope and importance from there. 

Overall:

  • In actuality, considering that every story and every writer has an angle, journalism itself is not perfectly “unbiased.” But by always getting comments from all sides of the story, practicing good ethics and tactics, et cetera, journalism methods aim to avoid as much bias as possible.
  • See Mission, Source & Interview Tips, etc for much more detail and more information! 

Key School Information

School address: 4444 NW Highland Drive, Corvallis, OR 97330

Staff directory: link

Enrollment as of October 1st, 2020: 835 (Source) (CSD overall: 6342)

Percent qualifying for free/reduced lunch program: 14% (Corvallis School District overall: 25%)

Race statistics of students at CV: 

  • American Indian: <1% (CSD overall: 1%)
  • Asian: 7% (CSD overall: 6%) 
  • Black: 1% (CSD overall: 1%)
  • Hispanic: 9% (CSD overall: 18%)
  • “Multi” (District terminology): 9% (CSD overall: 8%)
  • Pacific Islander: <1% (CSD overall: 1%)
  • White: 73% (CSD overall: 66%)

Percent of CV Students with an Individual Education Plan (IEP): 9% (CSD overall: 10%)

Required vaccinations at CV: 94% (Source) 

Graduation and teacher stats as of 2019-2020: (same source as above) 

Crier Mission & Policy Guide

General mission: 

  • Provide accurate, reliable information (and entertainment) for and by the CV community and especially students. 

Staff goals (set in March 2021): 

  • Get more acknowledgement from the CV Instagram itself. 
  • Long-term: get the Crier to become a class. 
  • Generally: get more people involved AND more readers. 

Corrections policy:

  • Minor typos on the website can be fixed without comment. 
  • Edits that change the meaning of a sentence/a key portion of the article need to be noted at the bottom of the article itself. 
  • In print editions, any corrections should be noted in the next edition. 

Ethics and conflicts of interests: 

  • Always report and write to inform, not to damage/attack/otherwise harm. Investigative reporting is to inform, and while it may bring unflattering details to light, truth is the ultimate goal. 
  • Whenever possible, on contentious issues/issues with two sides, bring both perspectives into the story. False neutrality is also not the goal: both sides should merely have the chance to make their case/show their own perspective to the story. 

Article policy:

Articles must: 

  • Be at least 300 words 
  • Cite sources!! 
  • Have some connection to the reader/Corvallis/CV 
  • Media reviews are somewhat exempt from this as are recommendations/etc 
  • If you have any specific photos you want used, they must be either licensed under Creative Commons or belong to you; otherwise, you must have express and explicit permission from the copyright holder to use the image 

Production/Deadline Guide

For greater production details, see Organization & Publication Process and Recaps of Key Production Processes. 

Deadlines:

  • While in distance learning, article deadlines are only one day before the articles are set to be published. Communicate if you cannot meet the deadline as soon as possible to avoid chaos! No judgment! Just be honest, communicate, and things will work out fine. 
  • In person, deadlines are about a week before the layout is due to be sent to the printer. Thus, there is a little more flexibility, but still, communicate! 

Essentially, communicate if for any reason you cannot meet your deadline and do your best to meet it in any case.

  • The Crier isn’t meant to be a source of more stress for anyone. Do your best and, again, this cannot be said enough, communicate! 

Sources & Interview Tips

Approaching an interview:

  • People want to talk to people
  • Be relatable and empathetic
  • Listen!! “It’s not about you”, it’s about the interviewee
  • You want the interviewee to feel in complete control: make sure they’re comfortable, and always ask permission to record an interview!
  • Be open to slight tangents and deviations
  • Be: open minded, professional, punctual, appropriately dressed, and prepared with a basic framework of questions. 

Sensitive Topics:

  • Be cautious, add a trigger warning (a statement cautioning upsetting or disturbing content) if necessary
  • Avoid triggering language or opinions, and use words like “survivor” instead of “victim” 
  • Listen, embrace silence, allow for breathers, and know that accounts may not be exactly chronological 
  • Again, make them comfortable, be transparency, talk them through it 
  • Find documents and other sources too, don’t rely too much on one source 

Verification and other tips:

  • Refresh memory with documents, etc 
  • Interview many people from all sides of the story (helps with bias) 
  • Read body language and approach the interview with an educational, non-confrontational attitude
  • Ask open ended questions and be open-minded 

Profile/Interview tips:

  • Get to know people and follow the topics they seem interested in, linger there
  • Observe and listen – don’t make it about you!! 
  • Ask follow-up questions to get specific details and paint a vivid and colorful story 
  • People are totally willing to talk to you about all kinds of stuff if you reach out!! 
  • Don’t be too nervous, because if they agreed to talk to you they probably want to meet with you!! 
  • Sometimes touchy topics are okay, depends on the level of openness of the person you’re interviewing (i.e. spiritual leaders VS students VS politicians VS professors/teachers) 

Profile  tips:

  • Keep it relatively simple, but still exciting. Make it broad enough where there is no right or wrong answer, but also interesting enough to get a good response
    • Good Q: What is something you are passionate about inside or outside of school?
    • Bad-ish: What do you like at CV?

Feel like things are going sour? Spice up the list of questions! Throw some randos in there. It never hurts to ask someone’s current fav show or what 3 things they would bring on an island. 

  • This is also changing up the pace of the interview. Interviewing people sometimes can feel slow or one-toned. While off topic questions are fun, still stick to the theme of your interview. 
  • Having a layout is crucial, and on top of that, extra questions for those just-in-case moments. 

Sources and Inclusion:

  • Get interviews or at least student/local perspective whenever possible!
    • Adding a human story to any larger story is always a great way to make an article more interesting.
  • Get ALL PERSPECTIVES whenever possible, especially with investigative reporting. If someone declines to comment, note that in the article to show your attempt at balance. 

Public Records, Meetings, & FOIA

Public records are exactly what they sound like: public. See FOIA basics below for info on how to find them if they’re not available online/by regular request. 

Attending public government meetings

  • Corvallis School Board: During the COVID-19 pandemic, all board meetings are being streamed live on the district’s YouTube channel. They meet publicly once a month on Thursdays starting at 6:30pm. 
  • Corvallis City Council: The Corvallis City Council meets on the first and third Mondays of every month at 6pm; if the Monday is a holiday, then they meet on the Tuesday following. The meetings are broadcast on Comcast Cable Channel 21, but you can also watch live by registering here. Any resources/policies/minutes you might need for a city council meeting can all be found on the Corvallis city website, primarily here and here. 
  • Benton County Board of Commissioners: The Benton County Board of Commissioners meets Tuesdays at 9am, and during the pandemic their meetings are livestreamed on Facebook. The link is here. (Source: County website).
  • Oregon State Legislature: You can watch any hearing/meeting/assembly of both houses of the Oregon Legislature here. 
  • US Congress: You can watch what’s happening live on the floor of the House of Representatives at any time here, and you can watch the Senate live whenever proceedings are happening (as well as access verbatim remarks records) here. 

Covering Courts 

Most courts don’t allow cameras, though some are being live streamed due to COVID-19 concerns. E-filings and court records are usually available at some point, and in addition there are always interviews with legal experts, profiles of those involved in the case, et cetera to write. Freedom of Information Act requests can sometimes yield more information. Make sure to brush up on “legalese” and explain it when it’s used in articles! 

Freedom of Information Act Basics: 

  • Only applies to public agencies, inc. public universities/schools, and private bodies performing public functions. (not federal agencies though!) 
  • Agency must respond unless explicitly exempted (examples: ongoing criminal matters, national security, grades of students, personnel records, etc, and private schools, tax documents, some other situations)
  • Verbal request is fine but written requests create paper trail 
  • Agency is not required to provide research, analysis, or explanations 
  • Agency must release info in a timely manner unless exempted somehow 
  • www.splc.org/lettergenerator: great place for FOIA request letter format 

Copyright Guide 

Copyright is CRUCIAL to understand. You can face serious consequences for improper uses—and you also have rights to the writing and images you create! 

Key things to know about copyright

  • Photos, stories, illustrations, ads, and more can all be copyrighted. More importantly, lack of notice/written copyright information does not mean there is no copyright on the work. Formal registration and/or notice with the work is not required. 
  • Your own license rights: student journalists are considered “independent contractors,” meaning that you have the rights to your own stories and images but give the Crier limited license to use them in stories/publications/etc. 
  • The law requires express permission from the copyright holder, not just credit (except for Creative Commons licenses) 
  • Instagram/other social media sites can relicense images and also create consequences if images are used improperly 
  • Fair use: if the purpose or character of the use of the image is mainly for reviewing said thing or parodying it, not much of the image is used, and (most important part) the use doesn’t impact the market value of the original work.
    • Examples: review of a new TV series, a parody song that uses some melody from the original but is clearly not meant to be a substitute for the original 
  • That said, no set portion or use of any work is guaranteed to be okay. 
  • The rule of thumb is to use as little as possible of any work, and when using it, just ensure that the use doesn’t qualify as a “reasonable substitute” of the original (thus removing market value and potentially violating copyright). 

Finding images for articles

  • Wikipedia Commons is a great source, and it’s easy to cite. 
  • Other options are Pexels, Flickr (free!) and Creative Commons
  • Adobe Stock, Getty Images, and AP Images cost money but also provide images 
  • Better yet: take your own pictures if you can! This makes them the most topical, guarantees absolutely no copyright confusion, and makes them most relevant to CV and the story. 

Creating Good Surveys

It’s impossible, for the most part, to survey every single person out of a given group, so it’s important to find the right portion of the population to survey. 

Important metrics to understand

  • Margin of Error:  how much your results likely differ from the entire population. For example: in a survey it was found that 75% of people preferred ice cream over frozen yogurt, with a 5% margin of error. Thus, the percent of the whole population that prefers ice cream over frozen yogurt is somewhere between 70% and 80%. 
  • Confidence Level: the probability that your results (including margin of error, all the data, etc) represent the true average of the overall group. For example, if the confidence level for the question about ice cream and frozen yogurt is 95%, then there is only a 5% chance that the data misrepresents the overall population’s opinions about frozen dairy products and a 95% chance that 70-80% of the population definitely likes ice cream better than froyo. 
  • Doing only a few quality surveys is better than doing a lot of not-so-good ones! 

Questions should have binary answers if possible (yes/no) and be understandable to the audience. 

  • They should not be leading, loaded, “double-barrelled” (asking two things at once), or absolute.

Response: It’s important to eliminate bias, which is especially prominent in response biases (bias toward people willing to do a survey). That can exacerbate under-reporting on certain populations—and makes online surveying hard to do well. 

Presentation of results should include the date the survey was conducted, how it was done, the actual data that was collected, the margin of error, and the confidence level.

It’s hard to say exactly how many people have to be surveyed at CV to get a good set of data, but 100 is a decent start. 

(Brief statistical explanation: if the standard deviation—the average variance of a response from the mean of the data—is low, then the confidence level will be higher, and the margin of error will be less if the confidence level is higher, and vice-versa. That said, the overall population of CV is about 900  students as of this writing, so surveying one in nine people of a population means the margin of error is already going to be pretty low, and unless the responses wildly vary, the confidence level will be acceptable as well. Thus, start with 100 as a general estimate.) 

  • The math for margin of error and confidence level calculations is slightly complicated, so it’s best to do some research before diving into that (or find someone who definitely knows how to do the calculations and ask for help). 

Guest Writers/Letters to the Editor

Anyone can submit a piece to the Crier. Historically, this has been a State of the Union by the CV ASB presidents or creative writing pieces from CV students, but anyone can submit something, including a “letter to the editor” or other opinion piece, as long as it meets general standards for ethics and is overall reasonable. 

To submit any guest writing or letter to the editor (or art piece, or anything else), the author/creator can submit their file to this Google Form: link. 

Staff Communication

As a staff, we’ve used many different communication platforms over the years. In person, we use a whiteboard to coordinate publication dates, and we currently also use a Discord server for planning meetings and a spreadsheet for coordinating deadlines, resources, and links. 

If for some reason, you don’t have access to any of those things, you should email the Crier email: crescentcriernewspaper@gmail.com. The editor(s) always have access to that, so they can definitely direct you to anything you need access to.

Submitting articles:

You should submit your articles to either the official Crier email (crescentcriernewspaper@gmail.com) or the school email of the editor-in-chief (as of this update, kate.voltz@student.csd509j.net). If you have any issues with that, you can always use the Google Form for the public to submit articles: link. 

Online/Social Media Guidelines

How to make the Instagram posts:

  • Go to Canva! The Crier has its own Canva account; sign in using Google. 
  •  Create a post, fill in all the info, and use the same image as the article for the background of the image (for ease of license/copyright attribution!) 
  • Then, go to qr-code-generator.com and make a QR code with the link to the article. 
  • Change the QR code color to match the Instagram post’s color by copying the hex code of the color from Canva and putting it into the website’s color change option. 
  • Finally, save that, put it into the Canva post, finalize that and save it, and upload to Instagram! 

What to upload to the Instagram:

  • Posts about articles 
  • Marketing/info about the Crier itself 
  • And pretty much nothing else! 

Don’t:

  • Add any other commentary on articles/stories in the captions of posts 
  • Add commentary on your own personal account to the posts 
  • Violate any kind of journalistic standards (or cyber etiquette standards in general!) 

Evergreen Story Ideas

  • Book and movie reviews 
  • Crossword/word puzzles or word searches
  • Holidays 
  • Heritage months (depending on the time) 
  • Student/teacher/staff features 
  • Local/new business/restaurant reviews 
  • School sports
  • Anagrams 
  • 10/50/100 years of “add specific topic” (Women’s Fashion, Food, Writing, etc.)
  • Writing tips: fiction/non-fiction 
  • Well-known writers from history vs. now   

Organization & Publication Process

Recaps of Key Production Processes

Story/Article Creation:

  •  Make sure it’s relevant to CV in some way, either directly or with a localized perspective on a bigger story (unless it’s some kind of media review) 
  • Follow AP style guide, journalistic conventions and integrity, etc 
  • Get sources if possible, seek truth above everything (entertainment is always secondary!) 

Deadlines: See Production/Deadline Guide 

Layout and design:

  • Use Canva to put together the edition itself (the Crier has its own account, sign in using Google) 
  • Save it as a PDF and send it to the advisor, Ms. Jordan, to be sent to the printers

Publishing:

  • Distribute around the school 
  • Have tried different strategies: random, during lunch, and (most successfully) coordinating release dates with Advisory days and distributing them to those teachers/classrooms for reading in that time 

Web publishing:

  • Put in the text, with the author at the very top above the article itself and at least one image.  
  • Then add a divider, then the paragraph about how to join/submit an article, and then hit post! 

Social media: See Online/Social Media Guidelines

Budgetary Information

Account balance as of 5/18/24: About $1600