News Gathering

Beat System

To keep up with everything taking place on campus, ReMarker staff members each have 2-3 sources they check in with regularly. These repeat sources are also known as beats. With 64 different beats ranging from the headmaster and alumni association to ceramics and choir, the beat system ensures that we don’t miss the hard-to-find stories our community needs to hear.

Pitch Day

At the beginning of each cycle, simultaneous with beat collection, staff members brainstorm story ideas and bring them to class for a predetermined “pitch day.” To ensure a variety of pitches, I ask each staff member to bring in a minimum of three pitches, each one belonging to a particular category. First are the issue-driven pitches which take an off-campus issue and localize it to the St. Mark’s community. Second are the personality pitches which profile some particularly significant or notable aspect of a person in our community. And third are the primary pitches which delve into any of three or four topics I select beforehand. These topics are usually the most popular, talked about, and timely, and I separate them into their own category because they’re important, but I don’t want everyone pitching the exact same three or four stories.

At our pitch days, gathered around an oval table and all facing each other (individual desks during COVID-19), we offer up our pitches, talking about them as a group as we go. Often, one person’s idea will spark an idea in someone else, and we build up until we have a thorough list of story possibilities to choose from.

Some of my pitches from our most recent pitch day

Issue-driven Examine the mass migration of Californians to Texas (Elon Musk to Austin), what this means job-wise & economically, talk to Barretts who moved from California two years ago

Personality Sam Ahmed ’20 at Georgetown, talk about his experience in D.C. during the Capitol riots

Primary topics COVID-19, Election aftermath, Black history month, Remote learning

Click below for last cycle’s pitch notes from our three classes

F Block

C Block

H Block

Story Slotting

After all the pitches are gathered together, section editors review them and select the ones that make sense for their section. They add them to a group “slotting doc,” writing a brief description of the story, suggesting possible sources, and assigning writers. Then, two days before stories are officially assigned, we gather together for a slotting meeting to make sure we are all in on alignment on the story slate and to eliminate any overlap between sections.

Click here to see the last cycle’s slotting doc

When I was an Issues Editor, my co-editor and I would take our story slate after that slotting meeting and expand on it even more, writing in-depth descriptions of our vision for each story, so our writers would understand the specific angles of their stories better.

Click here to see an expanded slotting doc from my time as an issue editor

This year, as Editor-in-Chief, one of my main jobs, beyond choosing cover stories, has been to make sure everyone’s involved and no one’s overworked. Sometimes it can be easy for a section editor to forget about a rookie or assign someone a lot of work when he’s already busy for another section. I have to keep an eye on how the different sections interact with each other in the story slotting process.

Interviewing

Before I begin the interviewing process for any story, I make sure to research any and all information relevant to the story. This new knowledge, even if it never gets used in the story, at least gives me a baseline from which to formulate intelligent questions, questions that dig deeper, understand feelings, emotions, and sophisticated concepts rather than just stats that can be googled.

I do like to start interviews with a few easy questions though, yes-or-no questions that allow whoever I’m interviewing to warm up and get comfortable. Then, as the tougher questions come up, I make sure to take notes not of what is being said but of physical reactions and visible emotions. These minor details can elevate almost any story. I also record all my interviews, with my sources permission of course.

At the end of each interview, I always ask one final question: “Is there anything I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to share with me?” I find that this little trick often provokes some of the most meaningful material and sometimes reveals something I never would have thought to ask.

After the interview, once I’ve begun writing and maybe finished a rough draft, I sometime circle back with follow up questions to fill in the details I’m missing.