MAYA CLEMENT
WEBSITE
I have a lot of experience with the website as I was a Digital Staffer as a sophomore and have had the majority of my work posted. I work very quickly and efficiently so producing timely content has come easily to me. I have enjoyed the openness to write stories ranging from opinion pieces to News stories and the ability to produce stories without a strict word count.
Posting
Because I was on the Digital Staff previously, I learned how to post on the website. I posted the majority of the stories I edited as Beat Editor after they were finalized. I have also posted throughout this school year, but not as often as my focus is primarily on the magazine. Because I have a lot of experience, I have gotten pretty quick at posting. I enjoy having this skill because it allows me to feel like I am truly in a hybrid program. I also like that this is a unique skill that not everyone on staff has.
Administrative hold, Aug. 16
I helped the ODYSSEY Media Group News Editor write this story at the beginning of the school year. We ran into a lot of difficulties getting the proper resources we needed to fact check all of the information in our story. We decided to push through these difficulties because we thought that this was an important story to tell. In the end, the story turned out really good and we have received a lot of praise for this story which feels amazing.
Rising up remotely
This story was my introduction to being published on the website and it was the first coverage story I ever wrote. While I was a Journalism I student, I wrote this story with another student in the class. It was pretty difficult to write as I had been in the class for less than two months. It was also the first time I ever had to write a story in 24 hours in order for it to still be relevant. Overall, this creating this story was full of firsts and it opened my eyes to journalism.
A pledge for truth
Last year, I assisted the Digital Managing Editor in writing this story. We attended a rally for teaching the truth about local civil rights history where we took photos and interviewed sources. This was the first time I reported on a local story instead of just Clarke Central High School. I was very nervous attending the event, but I challenged myself, and we ended up producing a good story.
Review: Inventing Anna
One of my favorite stories that I wrote last year was my review of "Inventing Anna", a limited series on Netflix. I enjoyed getting to watch the show and getting to write an opinionated piece. Sometimes I can find inputting my opinion into pieces difficult, but I didn't face that challenge when I wrote this piece.
New CCSD Superintendent announced
This was the first story I wrote this school year. I wrote it with a colleague in roughly two hours and it felt really good to get back into reporting after the summer. I loved the experience of working with someone and was so proud that we were able to accomplish the story in such as short amount of time. Writing this story made me feel more confident and excited for what the school year would hold.
JROTC's 9/11 ceremony canceled
For the first semester of the 2021-22 academic year, my beat topic was the Clarke Central High School JROTC. Throughout the semester, I wrote three stories and they all got published. This story was difficult to write because I originally wrote a story about the ceremony and right after the story got finalized, the ceremony was canceled. Because of this I had to quickly shift my angle.
CCHS hosts first Raider competition
This story was my second beat on JROTC. I found it easier to write than the first story, but it was still difficult as I didn't have much experience with News writing at the beginning of my first year in Production. Because I had already wrote a story about JROTC, I was more comfortable interviewing my sources and I got to build a relationship with the program.
Family matters
This story was a blog I wrote about my stepfather and how he has changed my life. I was conflicted about this story because I wanted to write it, but I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to say. I don't usually share personal things about myself so I had to push myself to actually execute this story. I think that this story turned out very well and my stepfather really appreciated it when he read it.
Showing Big Red
This story was really fun to write because it was the first story I wrote where I felt really confident in the creation process. I conducted good interviews where I was able to get strong responses and make the sources feel comfortable. I also had an easy time writing this story as basic news writing was etched into my muscle memory. Because of this, I was able to write this story quickly and get it published in a timely manner.
CCHS FFA week
The process of creating this story made me realize how much my writing and journalistic skills developed over the 2021-22 school year. I went into the initial interview with a story in mind, but discovered a new, more timely topic during the interview. I had to completely freestyle the rest of the interview to make sure I got all of the information I needed. In addition, because of the story's timeliness, I completed it in one day. This felt really accomplishing as I had never completed a story that quickly before.
Strength in leadership
This was one of my first sports stories that I wrote. While News writing comes naturally to me, when the topic is centered around sports, this becomes more difficult because I am less acquainted with correct terms and how to report team information. However, with the use of previously posted stories, I was able to write this story in a day to post shortly after the cross country team's season ended. I also received no edits from other students or my adviser, building my confidence in writing.
Multimedia
In addition to writing, I have experience with multimedia. I have created multimedia for many of my stories in order to increase engagement with the audience. Sometimes multimedia is hard for me to create because it is difficult to think of ideas, but I am proud of everything that I have created. I like to use videos, pictures and infographics for multimedia because I think they are interesting to look at and a great way to break up the text. Click the photos to view!
SOCIAL MEDIA
The majority of my experience with social media lies in my ability to post. Because I was a member of the Digital Staff last year, I have access to all of the social media accounts for ODYSSEY. In addition, I have had some of my own work posted on social media.
Scenes
I completed two scenes for the ODYSSEY Media Group Instagram which were short stories on one aspect of a person. Because it is almost the end of the year, I interview the students about how they felt the year had gone. Doing these scenes were difficult for me because I am pretty uncomfortable just going up to people and asking them for an interview, but I overcame this and I think that both of the scenes turned out well. I did learn that next time, I should try to make the sources and myself feel more comfortable to prevent awkward interviews.
School safety and new policy scenes
At the beginning of the year, a colleague and I decided to do a scene project where we collected three scenes each about the recent events involving school security and the new policies related to safety. We got the scenes together which allowed me to be more comfortable since I wasn't going through the process alone. This was also a good opportunity for mentorship because the colleague I did the project with was new to staff so I was able to assist them in the process. The scenes never ended up getting posted because they were going to be turned into a story, but that fell through. Through this process, I was able to learn what I needed to work on as far as interviewing this year and it was exciting to get to work with someone else.
Posts
These are some examples of stories posts that I have made on the Instagram. While I did not write these, I did compile the elements and put them in an order best suited for our audience. I enjoyed getting to share the stories others have put a lot of effort into with our audience through social media.
Infographics
I have also created infographics and graphics for the ODYSSEY Media Group Instagram. I have enjoyed creating these as they are pretty simple and challenge my creative abilities. I try to make them as easy to read as possible. I think that creating these are good for our audience since they provide more information that people may not know otherwise and recognize important holidays in the United States.
Veterans Day Trivia
In order to inform the ODYSSEY Media Group's audience I created a trivia that was posted to the Instagram story. I enjoyed creating this as I was able to learn more about Veterans Day and I know that it is important to many people. I found coming up with the questions and answers easy, but designing each background was more difficult because I challenged myself to make each background unique.
Thanksgiving Trivia
I created this trivia about Thanksgiving in order to get more engagement on the ODYSSEY Instagram and inform our audience about this holiday. I had a lot of fun creating this trivia because I didn't know a lot of the facts so I got to learn a lot. I also enjoyed creating the background for each of the questions because there were a lot of interesting Thanksgiving themed elements on the website I was using. I did run into a few challenges with creating questions that weren't too difficult, but also not too easy. To overcome this, I evaluated who would be responding to trivia and determined whether the question was suitable.
