I can’t believe it’s already week 3!!! Although the weeks seem to be flying by, it’s hard to comprehend that we have already put together 3 issues of the Transcript this semester…wow.

We all seem to be getting a little more comfortable working with InDesign and laying out the paper, that’s pretty cool. We don’t constantly need the watch of Melinda. I’m pretty proud of this fact, especially because I always seem to have a bad time learning something new.

We had our first “semi-scandal” this week. An article submitted to the paper made a libelous claim against a certain department on campus. I had edited it pretty heavily to cut some things out but after reading it through a few times, Melinda suggested we just cut it. The whole story was based on a rumor and the people in the department denied that it was true. Even though the story was written well and stated that the rumor was just that…a rumor, it still put the department in a bad light. After cutting the story, I emailed the man in charge to inform him that we would not be reporting the story. He responded by telling me he “appreciates” my “journalistic integrity.” That made me feel pretty good about myself!!

I also met with our school president yesterday, Rock Jones. It was pretty neat to sit down with him and just discuss a bunch of stuff “off the record.” He’s really nice and he made me feel comfortable. Last year’s Editor-in-Chief came with me but I think I feel comfortable enough to start going on my own soon. I plan to meet with Dr. Jones once every two weeks or so, just to stay on good terms and get his opinions/suggestions.

Our staff is pretty awesome. I am so happy we’ve all bonded so well this semester already. I feel like these guys are my family here at OWU and I love spending evenings in the office chatting with them all. We also work really well together, which helps in laying out a whole paper.

Well, that’s all for now I guess. I’m off to Underwood’s Journalism 110 class to meet the students and watch them play a game with their AP Stylebooks. Should be fun.

To all of you, go pick up a copy of the Transcript!!! Or, just look at it online: www.owutranscript.com. Let us know what you think!!!!!!

-Katie, Editor-in-Chief

This is Brittany.  I’m your resident online editor; I do believe that I’ve yet to actually surface in this blog.

Katie informed me that I should write some sort of blog entry.  You know, as I’m updating the website with all the week’s stories and pictures.  And, with any luck, this blog as well.

I’ve just finished uploading the majority of the site.  What I typically do is come in after Katie and Kate have made the final adjustments on the paper with the help of the rest of our staff.  I get the fun job of seeing all the little mistakes that are still left in there after it’s too late to change them.  I get to hang out in The Transcript office into Wednesday evening so that everything is up by Thursday morning. 

This particular evening, I’m listening to Mozart L’opera Rock.  Yes.  A French rock opera.  No, I do not speak French.  My roommates went to France last semester and got me utterly addicted to it.  As I’m writing this entry, I’ve listened to the soundtrack once all the way through and am on the twelfth song of the second go-round.  I’m hoping to get out of here by the time I finish the second go round.  

Anyway.  Online stuff.  My big hope this semester is to make a lot of improvements to the site and to expand it – to get some genuine online content.  There are already some pictures that are only online.  Hopefully, everyone also noticed the video that went up last week as well.  We’re planning on have more of those.  I also want to add online columns.  This blog, of course, should also draw a large crowd.  My big battle of this evening was getting the pictures up to quality.  They’ve always gotten resized and pixellated when I upload them.  Tonight, I think I finally conquered that problem.  My roommates will be hearing about it for the rest of the night.  So will Katie – for the next week.  

In any case, I am ready to wrap this up, upload the blog, double check everything and send out some kind of witty email saying that the site is up.

Night all!

- Brittany

Hey all, Kate here.  I’m taking a moment from writing my thrilling article about the power-washing of Sanborn Hall to announce that People Magazine has gone to pot.

I seem to remember the news magazine featured actual news, like presidential addresses or war updates.  But today at the gym, I saw a seriously horrifying (and hyped-up) People cover. Heidi Montag and her 3945803 plastic surgeries? And a few weeks before that: Kate Gosselin’s freakin’ hair extensions?

Another common cover: some almost under-the-radar celeb declares announces that they’re gay.  Where’s the REAL news?! People Magazine, I thought you were better than OK! and US Weekly… but even US Weekly has featured a politician (okay, so it was Sarah Palin and the title was “Babies, Lies and Scandal,” but still) on its cover!!

Anyway, back to finishing my article that was due a few minutes ago.

Week one, this is it. A little over a week ago we all met for our first, official staff meeting. It was a pretty good turnout…at least where photographers were concerned. 18!!! That’s how many photographers came to the meeting! INTENSE! We only had about 10 reporters show up but I think we’ve got a good group so hopefully we’ll be able to handle everything. 

The stories we got turned in this week were pretty awesome! The girls and I spent our Editing and Design class laying out our pages. Then Mike showed up and it was almost full editorial staff in the office! Unfortunately, everyone (except me!) has class Tuesday evenings so I had to spend a little time by myself. At least I got a lot done!

Before he left, Mike and I jammed to some “pop” music for a while. It was a good thing he was there because he’s had experience with layout. I’m pretty positive I would have had to call Melinda at least twenty times if he hadn’t been there haha. I’m sure Melinda appreciates his help!

Leanne and Kate showed back up a little later and we were able to skim through the pages, making sure everything looked okay. Just a few tweeks remain but it all looks good.

I think the highlight of the night was when RJ showed up and announced she was a “sex-aholic” and was here for “sex-aholics anonymous.” Her jokes definitely helped calm the room haha.

Overall I spent about eight hours in the office today. My editorial came out pretty okay I think. I have RJ to thank for that. RJ and her beautiful editing skills! All of us did a great job laying out our pages. Even the old Editor-in-Chief was surprised at how efficient we were in pushing our papers out. He congratulated us on our work ethic!

The paper comes out Thursday morning so look for it! Tomorrow we’ll do some final, last minute editing before we send it off to the printers. It should be a good one!

I’m off to bed now. I need to de-stress after such a hectic day!!!

*Katie

• Editor-in-Chief- Katie (Gretchen Weiners)
• News Editor- Kate (Karen Smith)
• Copy Editor- RJ (Ms. Norbury)
• Online Editor- Brittany (Regina George)
• A&E Editor- Diane (Aaron Samuels)
• Photo Editor- Sara (Trang Pak)
• Design Editor- Leanne (Damien)
• Sports Editor- Mike (Coach Carr)

and of course our lovely advisor Melinda, aka Principal Duvall.

Katie, Kate, and Sara here. We are The Transcript’s Editor-in-Chief, News Editor, and Photography Editor respectively. We thought it would be cool to start a blog in order to inform people of what we do every week through out the year. We’ll use this blog to give updates, give our perspective, and just talk about our days. You, as the reader, will get to see just how hectic our lives become as the semester goes on and the editions need to be edited, layed out, and printed.

The blogs on here will be posted by us editors at random. One day it will be one, another day it will be another. We want to give the perspective of all the different angles of putting together a university newspaper.

That’s it for now. The three of us have to finish our Editing & Design reading before class in a half hour.