Hawthorne High School’s journalism class and club members had the rare opportunity to talk to experienced reporters, writers, and editors from The Record at its Woodland Park editorial offices on November 12. The young journalists brought back many useful journalism tips that they plan to use as they write their articles for the school newspaper, The Clarion.

The day began with the warm welcome from Joe Dziublenski, the production copy editor.  Dziublenski gave the students a tour of the editorial offices so they could get a feel of how the journalism business works. The students were then escorted to the conference room where they were introduced to the first speaker, Lindy Washburn, a specialty reporter and writer in the field of heathcare. Washburn covers stories from hospitals and doctors to the emergency room and the Affordable Healthcare Act, and everything in between. Washburn discussed her recent article, “Mountains To Climb.” She used this as an example because it had just been published, although it took her about a month to write it, which illustrated for the students the importance of timelines when reporting the news. Washburn then explained how she works to gather information. She spends a lot of time talking to people and tracking down facts. She advised the students to always be polite, professional, and persistent when seeking interviews.

Dziublenski then introduced staff writer Monsy Alvarado who is a beat reporter and also covers stories on immigration. She explained the importance of localizing global stories to explain how they impact the local area. Alvarado also spoke about her immigration stories, noting that her ability to speak Spanish has been very helpful. “Knowing a second language,” she said, “is important.”

The students then had the opportunity to sit in on the morning news meeting as a group of editors filed into the conference room. Editor Martin Gottlieb led the meeting, which began with web editor Sean Oates reporting the online analytics. Then Gottlieb reviewed the day’s paper making both positive comments and minor critiques of each section. The group then discussed the lead articles that would be in the next day’s paper.

After this meeting, Will Lamb, the assignment editor, joined the students. Lamb, who leads a team of six reporters, explained that his job isn’t just about coming up with assignment ideas. His reporters also feed him ideas. “It’s a two way street,” he said. Now with the Internet, a writer has to juggle what he or she is putting in the paper and what is going online. Lamb discussed this process and said, “We’re keeping a lot of plates spinning at once without them crashing to the floor.”

The last speakers of the day were web editor Sean Oates and social media editor Elyse Toribio. Their contributions to the newspaper are all online. Oates explained to the class that being a web editor means he’s not out in the field. His job is about taking in all the information from the reporters and writers and packaging it all together. He and his team write headlines, blurbs, and the social media language. Also, Oates and his team have to make sure that everything is easy to find when trying to search a story online. After discussing this, Oates pulled up some measurements known as analytics. “In print news, you only know how many people bought a newspaper. Online you can see geographical things like how many people see it, when they see it, and where they see it.” They use this tool to measure successful articles.

Toribio manages the paper’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote stories, breaking news alerts, and things like online chats. Toribio also tries to boost the stories of individual reporters and photographers. She talked about using social media in a journalistic way.

Journalism student, Julia Aguero, ended the day saying, “The trip definitely changed my perspective on journalism.”