2014-2015 was a year of change and growth. As the year closes and the seniors leave, Peter Champelli made a video to reflect:
See the Director’s Cut of this video here.
This year, RedEye went through countless successes, challenges and changes. Our most popular post ever, the Purge coverage, was published on only the third day of school and scooped all the local media. From then on out, we were on the map, and we gained the attention of the community. And we were no longer just a high school press.
Visually, our site changed completely and focused on having better pictures and videos. A smaller staff called for everyone to be more focused and driven. Take a look at this year’s Best of RedEye, compiled and written by this year’s co-Editors-in-Chief Margo Morton and Farren Vaughan.
New site design
Our webmasters, Mark Kubiak and Tony Nguyen, always had new ideas for RedEye to look its best. One of our goals as EICs this year was to choose a new layout for the site, and Mark and Tony did much to help us find a new theme that would work with our vision and even tweaked the code here and there whenever we needed it. Look at the before and after of our site with the new theme:
Louisville Purge Unmasked: The Full Scoop
During just the first week of school, we reached an all-time high of site views–even briefly crashing the site–after reporters Kate Hatter and Peter Champelli scooped local media by directly interviewing the source of the “Louisville Purge” rumors. Our staff truly came together for this story and ended confusion and hysteria both at Manual and in Louisville as a whole.
Racist remarks surprised students at UK’s Constitution Day
In September, J&C attended the Constitution Day celebration at UK. After Mr. James Miller (Journalism) and Ms. Liz Palmer (Journalism) received the Enoch Grehan Prize, US Senate write-in candidate Robert Ransdell gave a speech that included anti-Semitic, racist remarks. When we got back from Lexington, we spent several hours back at school working on this story with advisers. This was the second most-viewed story on the site this year.
Manual’s admission process may become a lottery
A proposal for magnet schools to admit students based on a lottery system sparked an uproar in the Manual community in May. Dr. Robert Rodosky presented the plan to the school board in a work session on May 11 but the school board motioned to table the discussion until a better plan is ready. This story took a lot of effort because we (Margo Morton, Farren Vaughan & Alex Coburn) had to pull together information from multiple sources and explore concepts like stanines.
Synapse Episode 5 – Shooting the Messenger: Journalists in Ferguson
This year was not only a year of change and growth for RedEye, but also for Synapse, a podcast produced by RedEye staffers. Peter Champelli started the podcast in early 2014 and has since produced multiple episodes meant to “tell stories from the Louisville youth.” This award-winning episode focused on issues in Ferguson and the media.
Feminism 101One of several ongoing video projects this year, Feminism 101 was an opinion series by Alex Coburn and Haeli Spears. We’re excited to see what Alex and Haeli do next year as Managing Editor and Photo Editor, respectively.
This story, written by Crimson Record reporter Harper Carlton, was part of a new collaboration with other staffs. We published newspaper articles and Manual AM stories on the site this year to provide more visibility to all of the Crimson Student Press Network. Collaboration has been a big factor in staff development this year and we hope it will continue.
Meet Manual’s 2015 ISEF competitors
This piece was created by next year’s co-Editors-in-Chief, Amanda Tu and Peter Champelli. It is a great example of the direction we would like to see the site go in: taking advantage of as many multimedia tools as possible. Video, audio, photos and text all contribute to thoroughly covering a topic we’ve struggled to cover in the past.
OPINION: Why you don’t need to stand for the pledge and should respect students who don’t
Patrick Smalley wrote many opinion pieces this year, and this was one that stood out as exceptionally well-written and fair. It was in response to an article from the Crimson Record, which makes it another example of interaction among the staffs.
R.A.M. Sports Talk
This year, Jack Grossman, RJ Radcliffe and Kate Hatter started a sports podcast to further the athletics coverage on our site. It has been very important to push more and more coverage on all aspects of Manual life and it has been a great addition to the site. This is the first episode.
Manual girls meet for Powderpuff game
Assignment Editor Spencer Kincaid took a story that needs to be covered every year and made it unique and interesting for this year. This article includes multiple videos and photographs that brought attention to a beloved Red/White Week tradition.
Election 2014: Breaking down the results
Ian Johnson, our Managing Editor, did tons of behind-the-scenes work this year. He was an integral part of maintaining the site and his political expertise, especially in this piece, strengthened the staff.
We always have staff members who are interested in doing reviews, but we always ask the question of how to keep these relevant to the student body. Reagan Roy, Patrick Smalley and Haeli Spears found a way to do this by creating the feature “Things to Buy,” a guide to products, movies, games, etc. that students might be interested in.
“Hot Crimson” rap battle lyric annotations
The “Hot Crimson” rap battle during Red/White week was a great example of creative video work. Marissa Mitchell added to its quality by adding annotations to the lyrics, similar to Rap Genius.
OPINION: The problem with news coverage of police brutality
Shea Dobson was also involved with opinion writing for RedEye this year. His professional voice in this piece brought a new perspective to current national issues and is the aim for future opinion writing.
How to have the best Valentine’s Day ever
When Sarah Anderson came on as Visual Director during the second semester, she had almost too many good ideas to keep up with. One of the first posts she created was this infographic, which was nothing shy of great. The world needs more Sarah Andersons.
Senior Profiles: The Rosenstrom twins
This year, Noah Rough brought an interesting new element to the site: senior profiles. The profiles featured students’ stories who don’t typically get the most coverage.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s been a great year—and on that note, we’d like to thank each staff member for their individual contributions.
Thank you, Reagan, for keeping a positive attitude through anything.
Thank you, Patrick, for having plenty of thoughts to keep our opinion section top-notch.
Thank you, Shea, for your work in opinion and sports writing and for always keeping us watching to see what you do next.
Thank you, Amanda, for being one of the hardest workers we’ve ever seen.
Thank you, Peter, for always pushing the envelope and trying new things.
Thank you, Kate, for coming onto staff as the only sophomore and still killin it with your awesome ideas and vision.
Thank you, Mark, for letting us steal you from MST, if only for a block, and putting up with our antics every Red 4.
Thank you, Noah, for being our veteran staffer and having an endless amount of ideas for videos and not only being VideoBoy, but VideoKing.
Thank you, Jack, for being the resident sports expert and having the best laugh we’ve ever heard.
Thank you, Ian, for being the best second-in-command we could ever ask for. Focus groups.
Thank you, Tony, for doing great things even when no one was looking.
Thank you, Spencer, for covering pretty much anything and always having a witty joke and Ridiculam idea.
Thank you, RJ, for having cool pants and generally being the most likable person ever.
Thank you, Sarah, for coming on to staff halfway through the year and still doing awesome things for us.
Thank you, Alex, for being our social media guru and knowing all there is to know about feminism and the film industry.
Thank you, Haeli, for your photography talents and great style. We can’t wait to see what the site looks like next year with a photo editor.
Thank you, Marissa, for the Rap Genius-like annotations and for covering all those art galleries even when you had work.
[quote_center]Thank you, everyone, for being a part of the best staff ever.[/quote_center]
