While news is a central part of most people’s lives today, most don’t realize all the work behind the scenes. Hours and hours of work goes into creating the mass communications at our school.  

Lincoln has four publications, magazine – Beyond the Flock, yearbook, newspaper – Cardinal Times and Spanish magazine – puño y letra. This year, all four classes are during the same period and in adjacent rooms, allowing more collaboration between staff.

According to magazine teacher, Emily Hensley, last year yearbook and magazine shared staff, but found it difficult to do so with reporters having multiple deadlines and bigger workloads. However, this year communication between the two continue.

Now the staff will share photos and other materials, and help with double checking names or facts. Hensley says, “While there hasn’t been a lot of collaboration, it’s been lot more cooperative between publications… rather than competitive.”

Hensley has also worked helped the other advisors teach their classes.

“Any materials that I’ve ever created I want other people to feel free to use or not use at their leisure… this is challenging work and anything we can do to make it easier for each other is helpful.”

Hensley has also worked extensively with Trevor Todd, the puño y letra advisor, to help start the Spanish magazine. The Cardinal Times also works with staff on puño y letra and publishes one Spanish magazine story per issue. Since puño y letra only comes out ___ times per year, the Cardinal Times collaboration allows it to publish more current-events related stories.  

Junior Olivia Loibner, editor of the yearbook, is really happy to have the the other publications when it comes to missing content. There are currently about six full time staff members on the yearbook, meaning it is tough to cover all events. She says working with the other publications to fill those gaps has “been a real lifesaver.” .

Junior Jamie Bikales, editor of the Cardinal Times, has also been very happy with the collaboration this year. Now the newspaper works closely with puño y letra when it comes to publishing their stories in every issue. Bikales says, “it’s like a symbiotic relationship… it’s mutually beneficial for both.”

As of now, staff and teachers of the publications are very pleased with the cooperation they have with one another, and are looking forward to more collaboration in the future.

Hensley says, “My hope is that it will create a more cohesive journalistic community among students and that it would afford us opportunities to key resources that … all of our students can benefit from– a more enriched experience for all.”