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About Me

My name is Michal Ruprecht and I'm a senior at Grosse Pointe North High School and Editor-at-Large and member of the Editorial Board of our school publication North Pointe. I started my journalism career freshman year as a staff reporter and continued in sophomore year as a page editor. I was promoted to editor-at-large junior year and continued in the same position senior year, which makes this my fourth year on staff as a student journalist. I am in charge of training staff and making sure the website and paper have solid content that gets to print on time. My hands-on experience as a student journalist taught me the importance of being a watchdog and storyteller. This portfolio is a good manifest of what I have learned and how I've evolved. I'm a National Scholastic Press Association Honor Roll Student Journalist and I've received individual Michigan Interscholastic Press Association awards for my news and feature writing.

Design//

In my four years on staff I had the opportunity to work on four different pages. When I was promoted to assistant page editor, I worked on the “On Pointe” page, a design-focused page with changing elements. After successful designs, I moved to the “On Campus” page to help get the life section back on track. The “On Campus” page has a rigid layout with many small stories on it. Next, I worked on the “Life” page as a section editor, crafting a design-focused page. As editor-at-large, I designed the new “In-Depth” page, a design-focused page with varying elements each issue. Since the section was new, I created and designed a double-page spread. Although I have designed pages for over three years, I was never traditionally trained in InDesign. Through many lessons with our residential InDesign experts, I learned the basics of design.

Volume 50, issue 4, page 5 "In-Depth"

This design required a lot of teamwork. With help from our residential Illustrator expert, I manipulated the page layout and created an eye-catching page. The story on this page wasn't specifically tailored to fit the dominant image, so I went through multiple designs. I also put a lot of thought into the headline and its style.

Volume 50, issue 2

North Pointe was shortened to eight pages for the 2017-18 school year. This required most pages to be redesigned to accommodate the decrease in content. Issue 1 was a rough draft and was not fully refined, so issue 2 was the first issue with our new set layout. With other editors, I helped redesign the eight pages in our newly-shortened issues. I focused the redesign on content and photos to create visually-appealing and high quality content.

Volume 49, issue 14, pages 4-5 "In-Depth"

As the show "13 Reasons Why" became more popular, I was inspired to design a page about the show and mental health. At the center of the page, I focused the reader's attention on facts about suicide. On the next page, I added to the clean design by connecting the main story with simple infographics, a student section and column. I gave the story a simple headline. I also wanted to make infographics that further explained the controversy and ways to prevent suicide. I made sure to balance the height of the story with the spacing of the infographics to make an easy-to-follow design. I finished the page off with a column from one of our staff members. This page is a good example of a unique design.

Volume 49, issue 11, page 5 "Life"

I wanted to draw readers to this page through a unique page design. I went along with a theme of three. I placed the columns and photos in thirds. I placed the cutout so that it touched the edges of the page. This makes the photo seem like it comes out of the page, creating a somewhat 3D image. The cutout also added to the Disney theme of the story. However, because there was a lot of activity in the background of the photo, cutting it out was a challenge.

Volume 49, issue 9, page 5 "Life"

Instead of using art from online, I made it a priority to create all the art on this page myself to increase the quality and avoid copyright issues. By using Illustrator to combine the main points of the story into three pieces of art specifically tailored for the page design, I created an aesthetically-pleasing page. I also used the movie clapboard to surround the headline and go off onto the dateline. Also, instead of adding a pull quote box, I used the inside of the marker, which added to the natural flow of the page.

Volume 49, issue 7, page 4 "On Campus"

Even though this page is static from issue to issue, the execution and design issues posed each issue are challenging. Because there are so many sources and writers on the page, I had the opportunity to manage several different people with drastically different types of stories. Also, finding perfect photos with exceptional lighting required our photographers to retake all the photos several times. Although the writers and photographers had some problems with the process, I was able to craft a clean and simple design. I started the design with the photo essay, positioning the main photo in the center and adding two photos to the top and bottom adds balance and guides the reader's eyes.

Volume 49, issue 5, page 7 "On Pointe"

This is one of the few pages I have single-handedly designed and by far the most intricate. By using Photoshop to cut out the majority of the pictures, I created an aesthetically-pleasing design that makes the pictures come to life. I also placed the cutouts on the edges to emphasize fluidity. I also mapped the path of the reader’s eyes by gradually decreasing the size of elements from top to bottom. This design also involved a lot of law and ethics because I was required to contact sources for image reuse.

Editing//

I am responsible for helping edit eight pages and the content on them before they get to the printer each issue. I am also responsible for editing website content on our website northpointenow.org. North Pointe was shortened to eight pages during the 2017-18 school year, however the editing process remains the same for print and web. Every story gets two reads before it's placed on the page. The first read is for content and the second is for AP style. I give about 3-6 first reads every issue. After all elements and content are placed on a page, it goes through three reads. I am responsible for giving at least one of those reads. Before we send our paper to the printer, I look at each page one last time. I double check that each photo has a cutline and border and each story has a headline, sub headline, byline and proper paragraph styles. I also look for AP style errors and uneven gutters. In total, I spend just over nine hours editing each issue. At the end of our issue cycle I will have read every page and story twice, three times if I did a first read on it.

Leadership and team building//

My most important responsibilities as editor-at-large are to lead class, keep everyone on task, train staff members and manage the design process. However, during the 2017-18 school year, budget cuts forced us to combine classes with yearbook and expand into four separate classes compared to two. This severely limited the amount of time I was able to spend with staff members from other hours, but it gave me a smaller group to lead, so I was able to connect with each staff member one-on-one. This increased our efficiency and team bonding.

Organization tool

Many page editors have trouble checking up on reporters each issue. By creating a temporary organizational tool on Google Sheets, I showed page editors a convenient and easy way to organize their content. After a few weeks of using this tool, our deadlines no longer had to be extended and there was a significant drop in the amount of late work. This tool boosted the morale of the paper as a whole and allowed us to focus more on team bonding.

Teaching about sentence structure
Subject, verb, object technique
SVO assessment

I was still in training to give reads as a page editor, so I focused on improving the efficiency of our reads system. One error I noticed in many stories was sentence structure; specifically, the order of the subject, verb and object. By creating a technique with colors to visualize syntax and an assessment that went along with my presentation, I was able to teach staff members about the importance of sentence structure.

Teaching design

Many staff reporters were promoted to page editors when I was promoted to editor-at-large. I began teaching mini lessons before school about the basics of design. I also created a cheatsheet to pace them. However, the budget cuts severely limited the amount of time I was able to spend with the page editors from other periods, so I decided to start a tutorial series on YouTube.

Inspiring new ideas

I always ask reporters and editors to be creative in their lead writing, story ideas, headline writing, design techniques and website and social medial coverage and design. I also strive to learn more about law and ethics and leadership and team bonding. I created an inspirational notebook to give the staff inspirational ideas from professional and student sources.

Teaching about efficiency
"How to be an efficient page designer" PowerPoint
"How to be an efficient page designer" handout

Many page editors have problems with efficiency each issue. I created a presentation with specific tips geared towards page editors and gave them a schedule and list of common errors that kept them on track during the whole issue cycle. After a few weeks of using this tool, our deadlines no longer had to be extended and there was a significant drop in the amount of errors and late work.

Law and ethics//

Although I wasn't able to attend journalism conferences, I have used the resources other school publications publish online to improve my publication in terms of law and ethics. I have browsed publications and seen the differences between journalists from schools with prior review and schools like mine that do not have prior review. I also understand what their restrictions are and how I'm able to encourage myself and my peers to write stories even if it means facing backlash. This enabled me, along with the rest of the Editorial Board, to write editorials and hard-news stories that shaped school and city policies. Without prior review and supportive administration, the paper wouldn't have the same effect on the community.

News gathering//

District discontinues special education adapted art, music classes

My co-byliner and I spent over a month researching for this story. The new decision made by the school board was very complicated and many of our school board members and administrators didn't want to go on-the-record about the discontinuation of special education classes. In addition, some of the administrators in the special education department gave us vague answers that made it difficult to fact check everything. However, after interviewing six sources, 30 pages of research and going through multiple documents, hours of school board meeting recordings and sources, we were able to find a source that was able to verify all the information. Our fact checking went on for days, even up until the deadline. This story gave my co-byliner, a new intern, the opportunity to experience journalism in real time. This story was entered in the 2018 individual Michigan Interscholastic Press Association awards as a News Story and was awarded an honorable mention.

Saudi Arabian officials visit North classrooms to study American education

This is by far the most interesting news story I have ever written. I wrote it the day before our paper had to lock and I interviewed several administrators and teachers from our school. I even got to interview educators from Saudi Arabia. I also included Saudi Arabia’s education policy, which was difficult to digest and summarize, and connected it back to my school. The unconventional research that went along with this story also gave my co-byliner, a new assistant editor, a chance to experience news gathering on an international level.

Colleges prefer high school foreign language courses

Although I have written several news stories on foreign languages already, this story was uncomparable. I went through four different laws and district policies to uncover all the exceptions and rules involved in foreign language credits. I also interviewed sources who planned on taking and already took college foreign language classes. This gave the story more balance.

Legislation mandates CPR graduation requirement

After over 20 pages of research, multiple interviews with district administrators and sifting through dozens of pages of the new bill and other sources, my co-byliner and I condensed the complicated research into a concise and easy-to-understand story. The biggest challenge of the research were all the exceptions to the law and number of sources we had to use to cover all the angles of the new legislation.

School Board chooses new lunch provider, replacing Sodexo

This story was unique in that it required research on the new and old lunch provider, leading to two times the research compared to a regular news story. In addition, the reason for the change in lunch providers wasn’t made clear by some administrators, so it required me to uncover the facts with multiple sources. We also did a lot of research on the new improvements.

Anthropology students search for artifacts in Detroit

This was one of my first news stories and proved to be very unique because there was a lot of historical research I had to conduct. Since the historical background was limited online, a lot of it came from a hour-long interview with an anthropology teacher. I learned that I can’t always rely on online resources.

Writing//

Students partake in Bitcoin's rise

After hearing about Bitcoin, I was compelled to write a story that connected the phenomenon back to our school. After several hundred text messages to students, I was able to find a student who had invested in the digital currency. Since the topic seemed so complex before I began my research, I made it a priority to explain each part of the process: from the buying of the currency to the uses of it. Although it wasn't easy to put into layman's terms, I think this was one of my strongest features that used a digestible amount of information. I also focused on writing a captivating lead to catch the reader’s attention. Finally, I added several perspectives for a well-balanced story. This story was entered in the 2018 individual Michigan Interscholastic Press Association awards as a Informative Feature and was awarded first place.

Girls in STEM

This story was by far one of the most interesting stories I’ve ever written. I began the feature with a student source and statistics to craft a unique lead. I also connected the story back to former students to get many perspectives. The story had a big emphasis on an issue that isn't talked about a lot.

Over-the-counter to under the table

Although this story was controversial, I tried to balance it with multiple sources, one being a patient who uses the drug regurality. Throughout the story, I focused on using the transitions to lead into the quotes smoothly. I introduced the problem and then added reactions for my sources. I also created a rough skeleton of the story before I interviewed the sources to work my transitions around the quotes. Along with the writing, I following journalistic ethics by receiving permission from the patient's mother to publish the information.

Students go on Global Leadership Adventures

This profile is definitely my most favorite because it was strong style-wise. I focused on emphasizing the sources' voices by getting interesting quotes and using them liberally. I uncovered emotions and a lot of interesting information about the sources.

Teachers, coaches promote growth mindsets

By combining elements of education and sport, I conveyed the importance of a growth mindset, while keeping a focus on the student sources. I did this by describing several situations where growth mindset was used and the effects that came along with the use. I also got a lot of solid quotes from my sources because many of them were very passionate about the subject.

Paid to play?

Although I usually don't write sports stories, I picked this one because it interested me and I didn't really know a lot about the topic before writing it. I was able to concisely explain the issue between players and the NCAA. In addition, I presented many hypotheticals and how they could affect the players and their desire to succeed in an intrinsic way, while receiving some extrinsic value.
Michal Ruprecht
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