Video by Addie Strbak

Editing, Leadership & Team Building

Team Testimonials

Rachael Wolfson

Print Editor-in-Chief, Class of 2024

Seyun not only strives to do his best, but he also strives to bring out the best in everyone else. Seyun's passion for The Pitch is clearly evident in his work, and the strong newspaper staff Walter Johnson has that Seyun helped curate. He’s a natural-born journalist who is great at cultivating a successful team around him, and he’s a great listener and a thoughtful editor. I’m very fortunate to have had the privilege to have worked alongside Seyun.

My Leadership Philosophy

Leadership is not about being the loudest, most authoritative, or smartest. In my approach to leadership, I try to combine the strengths of each and every person I work with to form an even greater team.

In this way, my leadership philosophy boils down to the people that I lead. It is never about my own skills or my own ability to do one thing or another but rather what I can teach and show to my team to sharpen our combined skills.

This is also why I take positive relationships with my team very seriously. A leader does not simply command respect — they earn it. I always seek to earn the respect of my team members in order to create a positive environment of collaboration and learning.

Photo by Ely Snow

It Takes a Village

Chaos Coordination

With a staff of over 50 people and two class periods of Pitch, communication is key. Besides being in both class periods, I maintain at least five different key group chats for print and online editors and print and online Editorial Board members, as well as one Editorial Board group chat. I also frequently text editors one-on-one to check in briefly and encourage editors to use our Pitch contact sheet to text writers in their section as well.

Photo by Hugo Conquet

In Class Check-ins

During press and class time, I make it a point to check-in with every single member of the staff, asking them what they are working on and how their progress is coming along. This keeps both me and them accountable, and fosters better relationships. As a leader, I have also learned how to have the more uncomfortable and private conversations that I am responsible for, including concerns over our reporting on sensitive issues, or bad feelings amongst staff working together, etc.

Checking in with Print Sports Editors Emily Proger and Jeremy Silberglied during class.

Receiving Feedback

One of the most important parts of leadership is being open to feedback. In order to build a stronger team, at the beginning of 2025, around halfway through the school year, I developed and asked staff to respond to a Google Form reflection asking for feedback, ideas, and goals for 2025. The Editorial Board took the feedback we got from writers and editors to slightly adjust our strategies and methods in order to keep Pitch an engaging, fun class while still maintaining high standards.

Staff Awards

After each print issue, we announce Pitch paper plate awards to boost morale and highlight standout staff members. We typically award around 8 people for different categories. At the end we also include a humorous section for "Special Shoutouts" and "People Who Need to Step It Up," and we always end with a call to action, encouraging others to work hard to earn an award. These award presentations are kept lighthearted and funny and encourage staff members to pitch in and work hard on our team.

SNO FLOW Review

As a part of our first week of school activties, we did refresher activities like reviewing the basics of lede and headline writing, caption writing, interviewing and photography to get staff up to speed before our first cycle. I made and presented this quick presentation about using SNO FLOW for story management and also coordinated efforts with other members of the Editorial Board to allow them to conduct training as well.

WordPress Training

This year, instead of only the Online Editors-in-Chief doing publication to WordPress, we devolved the responsibility to our online section editors, allowing them more ownership over their section's content. However, this also involved teaching them how to use WordPress, which I was directly involved in as the most experienced with WordPress. I led multiple WordPress trainings throughout the year including the slideshow linked here.

Editing

Go with the FLOW

I generally see articles twice in the editing process — once when the article is submitted to the Editorial Board and again when the WordPress draft is submitted to the Online Editors-in-Chief. With an Editorial Board of 12 people, we generally divide up articles, with each member taking around four articles per cycle. By the end of the editing process, a minimum of three people should have edited the article — the section editor, a member of the EB and our advisor.

Photo by Elizabeth Finn

Editing directly on a page during press, I show Copy Editor Bea Roberts where the errors to look for are.

My Editing Philosophy

Writers make mistakes. I definitely made a lot of mistakes when I was a freshman staff writer. Therefore, while important, editing isn't just about finding errors. Instead, I seek to teach the writer so they don't make the same mistake again. In the beginning of the year, we have meetings with section editors, and I tell them, even if the edit is as minor as a missing comma, leave it as a suggestion so that the writer sees the mistake and can change.

A Leader of Leaders

Delivering gifts with the Editorial Board

In mid-summer of 2023, our advisor sent our Editorial Board an earth-shattering text: she had been diagnosed with lymphoma. While we all struggled emotionally in her absence, the business of The Pitch marched on. Stepping into my role as then-Print Editor-in-Chief, I organized efforts among our Editorial Board of 10 leaders to show our advisor our support.

To celebrate the end of her chemotherapy in November, I coordinated the entire Pitch staff to sign a poster, worked with the rest of the Editorial Board to arrange gifts and found a time for us to all visit together to deliver our well-wishes. I coordinated efforts again in December for her birthday, coordinating recording a video of the entire staff singing Happy Birthday.

From the beginning, all of us on the Editorial Board were united in supporting our advisor during her difficult time. But as a leader of leaders, I stepped up to turn our individual thoughts into material, collective action.