Broadcast journalism & social media
Our program was behind the curve in adapting to the digital age. Not anymore. I’m most proud of the role I played in ushering in the new era with the launch of our new website. I believe our staff is extremely talented, so I lead the charge, pushing for everyone to expand their horizons and try new forms of content. From the Focal Point Podcast to the ReMarker videos, we’ve developed an entirely new aspect of journalism from the ground up. Under my oversight, the Focal Point podcast has doubled in listeners each year I’ve produced it and our social media pages have taken off. I’m extremely proud to be the individual who brought broadcast journalism to a historic program.
Video media
Starting video journalism
Our program has never produced video journalism as we’ve had no platform to display it; however, as soon as we launched the website, I knew it was time. We started off by reaching out to film students at our school, asking them if they would help us make a documentary. The documentary reassembled an ESPN 30 for 30 episode covering how three of four St. Mark’s winter athletic teams won the conference championship, as well as another championship won by our sister school, Hockaday. Highlighted by late comebacks, penalty saves and record-setting student sections, the tournament was quickly dubbed the greatest St. Mark’s sports moment ever. Please enjoy the first-ever documentary from the St. Mark’s journalism program.
Evolving our video content
Since taking the reign from Ben, I’ve, yet again, changed the style of our content to be more appealing to our viewers. I went around campus asking students for their thoughts, and they said they’d prefer to watch shorter videos than one big video– so I took that into consideration. This year, all of our YouTube videos have been five minutes long or less, paralleling a segment you might watch on a local news station. We started the year with a bang, creating a video covering COSM, the new immersive sports entertainment center outside Dallas. I led a team of videographers and staff members to make our first video during my time as Editor-in-Chief, setting up interviews, editing in post-production, and recording audio segments. I was so excited to go to the venue and have a sit-down interview with the founder, Steve Winn, but unfortunately, I got sick and couldn’t go. Luckily, our staff saw I needed help and stepped up and conducted the interview. The content was excellent, and after we posted it, it went viral, gaining over 22,000 views. Our entire staff was shocked. Our school has a little over 1,000 students from first through 12th, so when we saw the amount of support we got, it encouraged us to keep working on our craft to make more videos.
Preserving our history through multimedia
This year also marked the fifth anniversary of when our school was hit by a tornado that wiped out a lot of our campus, including our gym. Our staff wanted to give it special coverage, and I pitched the idea of making a video to reflect on how our community came together in the wake of the disaster. There were so many different people whose lives were changed forever that night, and I wanted to share all of their stories. However, we also knew we had to keep the video brief, or people might lose interest, so I worked with my digital team to set up a list of people whose voices needed to be shared. Regardless if it was the athletic director explaining how our homecoming football game had to be played at our rival’s school or the night-shift security guard sharing how he was in the gym when the tornado went through it and miraculously wasn’t seriously injured, all of the people emphasized the resilience and proactiveness of our community. When it was published on the anniversary, I felt a sense of pride knowing I did more than just report on an event– I helped preserve an important piece of my school’s history by honoring the unheard experiences of those who lived through it.
Podcasts
Shining a light on voices
As the first form of multimedia content I learned to produce, podcasting will always have a special place in my heart. Auditory storytelling allows listeners to hear emotions that print alone can’t capture– further enhancing the content’s impact. Since I started producing our Focal Point Podcast as a sophomore, I’ve revamped the podcast to look and sound more professional. In my junior year, I took complete control as Chief Producer and shifted our coverage away from stories directly tied to ones that appeared in the paper. I’ve produced a handful of episodes, all of which I record, edit, and publish myself. I aim to spotlight unique voices and experiences in our community, hosting episodes with intriguing guests from on and off campus. As we launched the website, our entire digital presence needed to improve– and our podcasts certainly did. Here are two podcasts from our community spotlight series, highlighting unique voices across campus.
Tackling issues with audio storytelling
I’ve also used podcasts as a way to cover challenging topics, making episodes covering safe religious diversity, safe injection sites and financial mismanagement. However, my favorite podcast is my most recent one covering the dark history of the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas and how their reign of terror continues to poison the city's culture. I was shocked to learn about the horrible history in my hometown and needed to learn more. It was somewhat ironic, I wanted to cover it because it seemed like nobody here knew about it, but when I went to look for sources, I hit a wall. While it was challenging finding sources who could confidently speak on the topic, I knew the story’s impact would be worth the effort. I set up research appointments at the Texas Hall of State to study primary historical sources and interviewed authors of books covering the history of race relations in Dallas. Uncovering and sharing this hidden history felt like a responsibility, and despite the challenges, the experience strengthened my investigative skills and reinforced the importance of journalism in shining a light on untold stories.
More podcasts
I talked to reviews editor Vikram Singh and guest columnist Noah Cathy about Drake's album: For All The Dogs.
At the School of the New York Times, I led my group in creating a mini single-episode podcast on NYC’s safe injection sites.
This is part of a series on the Focal Point Podcast where I quickly recap student athletic updates with one of the Super-Fan-Men (leaders of our student section).
Social media
In addition to highlighting our top stories, The Remarker’s Instagram notifies the community about important events and announcements around campus. We also started taking advantage of reels, posing short form video content to keep our audience enganged. Keeping steady with our revamped online presence, we use our Instagram to link to web stories and podcasts. As I mentioned in the design section, each year I redesign the templates for posts to match the newspaper’s design. We take pride in telling “real news”; while polls and quizzes may be fun, I made the executive decision to not have them on our Instagram or website. However, in the spirit of March Madness, I broke this practice, starting “St. Mark’s Madness”, running a bracket style competition to decide what students’ favorite school event or tradition is. (It was Homecoming, the number 1 seed).
