Jasmine Kaur Garcha
After my year and a half as a Contributing Writer, I joined the crew as Arts and Culture Editor. I freshly know what it’s like to be on either side of the process. I want to try and sort out any issues we might have on the backend while making the process easier and full of learning for Contributors. I also wish to improve our News reporting and enforce journalistic standards and ethics where they should be enforced, while allowing students to use their voices in opinion pieces, artistic vision, web-exclusives and other areas.
Q: How do you aim to improve our writing? (Article Pitches, Journalistic Standard, etc.)
A: I believe that we could benefit from written expectations—like a handbook—on how interviews should be conducted, using quotes and journalistic standards. At the moment, our editorial crew does a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard, but it’s important to also help our Contributors become stronger writers. This is especially true for our News section. News should be straightforward reporting that allows the reader to form their own opinions. At the same time, I believe that as a student publication, we need more opinion pieces. More web-exclusives on students’ opinions, Oscar recaps or concert reviews, humorous Sports articles, etc.
Q: How do you aim to improve our design (Illustrations, Print Layouts, Photography, etc.)
A: If we’re able to enforce stricter deadlines throughout production, it would make the Design team’s jobs less stressful. Creating a layout in a time crunch is hard! We should be sending our pitch doc out with enough time for Contributors to contact and interview subjects and write their pieces. It’s difficult when our production relies on so many people, but it seems that the Design team is getting the rough end of it, which I would hope to improve.
Q: How do you aim to improve our videography (Youtube Videos, Instagram Reels, etc.)
A: As a huge fan of the Videography team, I can’t say I have many ideas for improvements here! All I can say is that the people want more. Whether that’s feasible isn’t up to me, but I’d love to explore the possibilities and bounds.
Q: How do you aim to improve our zine (Design, Layout, Copywriting, etc.)
A: I hope to absorb the Zine into the main magazine. I believe that the Zine embodies what a student publication is. In the absence of the Zine, I wanted to introduce a newspaper that we can roll out biweekly; I’ve come to believe that a newsletter might be the better option here. Our News section, as it is, ends up being two months behind on news and this is unfair to those working on the pieces, the students who read them and those involved in the stories. The Zine has a home within the main magazine, which we should aim to make more homegrown as student publications are. News and Sports reporting—the time-essential aspects—can go in the newsletter, while anything that was meant to go in the Zine will go in the main magazine.
Q: How do you aim to improve our social media (Post/Reel Quality, Followers, Frequency, etc.)
A: I have love for and faith in our news beat reporting and current reel style. I think that we could do more videos involving the Crew, especially story posts from Crew meetings. We could also do street-style interviews as well as on-site interviews and reporting on events like the CSU elections or student life events held on campus, and off-campus events like protests.
Final Notes:
It’s been a dream of mine for years to work as a magazine editor. So, if this is the end of my journey, I’m content. I didn’t think I’d love it as much as I have and, now that I have, I find myself wanting to work on and improve it as much as possible. If I can help you find your voice or ignite a passion for print media in your heart, then I’ve done my job. Thanks for reading through my application and for considering me.