Week One - Sub-Editing
The launch of Artefact Magazine during this first week back at LCC has been a steep learning curve but a very collaborative and exciting venture. With the set up of the website and the communications servers like Slack and Bagpuss everything is slowly coming together. I don't feel this has been too stressful for anyone, and I feel the team is excited and taking on their roles seriously and efficiently.
As chief sub-editor I am still waiting for content to be produced so that I can correct and go ahead with making sure every article is edited to perfection. This is a role I particularly connect with as I am very diligent when it comes to spelling, grammar and punctuation and take pride in good writing without chastising people for their mistakes.
It has been great so far organising the sub-editors and working as a team. I rewrote the style guide into one clear concise bullet point guideline sheet so that my team mates don't have to click on multiple links in order to help them correct drafts. I am feeling really excited and so far confident about my team's abilities and because there is such a fresh buzz of work and collaboration between journalists, photojournalists and editors I genuinely look forward to coming to university to work on Artefact.
This experience has so far taught me that so long as I remain organised and positive, resolve issues when they happen and stay proactive with my workload and time management that the magazine will run smoothly. I'm sure that in the next few weeks the real issues will arise, but for now I truly enjoy the experience.
I was worried that working with a hierarchy system with varying levels of power would lead to a lot more professional problems however all team members are working really hard and seem inspired by the roles they have to do.
When talking with Yeasin and Jasmine, my sub-editors, we have great communication and a lot of fun even though we didn't really talk to each other over the past two years. I want to guide them properly and keep them from being bored, but next week we will have much more to work with.
Despite the initial digital teething problems, everything is running smoothly and so long as this level of communication is kept up, the magazine will be a real success. I was pleasantly surprised at how good some of the pitch ideas were and this has pushed me to think harder about how to write my own pitches and articles.
