As the new school year begins, we at Technician wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves to all the new and returning faces on NC State’s campus. Technician is a newspaper created by students, for students. The students interviewed below are just a few of the many students who come together each week to create the finished product you are holding in your hand or reading online.
Luke Perrin, Assistant News Editor
Q: How would you define the News section?
The content that News publishes are things at this university that students need to know about or that students should know about. That covers a lot of things. It can cover holding student groups accountable like Student Government or Union Activities Board — things like that. It also sometimes comes with the greater Raleigh area. For example, back in March when the fire happened in downtown Raleigh, we had to make a split-second decision of ‘Is it worth us covering because we are a student newspaper?’ News & Observer was there. WRAL was there. ABC 11 was there. We made the decision that it was worth covering because it was at nighttime, students are downtown, students live down there and people are going to be affected by this. Students are going to be affected by this. That’s what it all comes down to. ‘Is this something that students will be affected by? Is this something that students need to know about? Is this something that affects the university?’ If the answer is yes, then that’s the kind of content we want to produce.
Q: What do you like about your section?
I love the dedication of the staff. I love the staff as a whole. It inspires me to do better. It inspires me to be the best editor I can because I see these writers pushing themselves to do good reporting. I feel like I have to step up the bar to try just as hard or harder than they are to be a good editor and to be a good writer.
It’s cliche, but I love informing people. I love taking things that people might feel one way or the other about — some controversial issue — and I like taking these issues and telling people about them, saying: ‘this is what happened.’ Telling students and faculty about these things and letting them come up with their own opinions about it because our job as a News section is not to tell you our opinions.
Q: What makes a good News story?
Relevance to the university and relevance to the students. If it affects students — their normal everyday lives — then it is something that they need to know about. If it’s action by Student Government, really no matter what the action is, I feel like that is something that needs to be covered because they are elected officials at this university. If Student Government does just about anything, students deserve to hear about it. It’s the same with Union Activities Board because you pay student fees to them. You don’t have a choice whether you want to pay those fees or not. If they do an action, students deserve to know exactly what’s happening. It all comes down to the big question of ‘does this affect students?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ then it makes a good News story.
Aditi Dholakia, Opinion Editor
Q: How did you get involved with Technician and why did you stay?
I came into college knowing that I wanted to get into journalism and ideally written, print journalism. I missed an opportunity freshman year to get involved because I was focusing on getting ready for study abroad, but when I came back from study abroad I decided it was time for me to start doing what I actually came here [to NC State] to do. That’s why I got involved. I stayed because of the people, because I love work that we do and because I want to try and really do what the paper is supposed to do by representing all of the voices that are on campus by being truly representative of every aspect of the student body in any possible way that I can. I know that Technician has had some issues with that in the past and recently, and I feel like it’s my job to be able do that as section editor, but also because, as a minority, I do want to be one of those people represented.
Q: How would you define the Opinion section?
The Opinion section is the platform on which to foster discourse for the whole campus and for our whole student body population. It’s a place that encourages critical thinking and it encourages people to really come out and talk about issues that happen on and around campus in a way that could, in the end, foster betterment, which is the goal.
Opinion covers anything and everything that could in some way relate to or affect the students at NC State. That includes any kind of politics that may somehow affect some or all students at NC State or includes NC State-related politics within Student Government. Or it includes things like events on campus, or news stories that may be happening, or personal experiences that may be widely applicable to more than one person.
Q: What do you like about your section?
I like that it’s kind of a place that doesn’t require too much prior experience in writing. To come to the Opinion section, all you need is your opinion. The editors are here to help you really shape that in a way that is comprehensive to people. I think that one of the things that I really like is that anyone from any major is able to really come here and find a place for them to get a platform to speak.
Sarah Gallo, Arts & Entertainment Assistant Editor
Q: How did you get involved with Technician and why did you stay?
After I transferred here from East Carolina University last summer, I knew that I wanted to write for the student paper so I researched, found out about Technician and I reached out. When I got to school, I came into the office and introduced myself. I’ve been here ever since.
Q: Why did the name change from Features to Arts & Entertainment?
Arts & Entertainment is a little bit less ambiguous than being called the Features section because people look at “arts & entertainment” and have an idea in their head what the section is going to be like. It’s going to be about cool things going on around town, cool things going on on campus and cool people. When you hear “features,” it’s not as self-explanatory.
Q: What do you like about your section?
I like that my section is very creative. Everyone has their own niche within the section and it’s one of the most fun sections to write for in my opinion because you get to go to things you would already go to and just write about them and that’s your job. It’s pretty cool when you get to go to a concert on campus and say that you are working.
Andrew Schnitker, Sports Editor
Q: How did you get involved with Technician and why did you stay?
I knew I wanted to be involved because I knew that sports writing is what I want to do. I came to the open house when I was a freshman and talked to the current Sports editor at the time, Jordan Beck, about what the job would be. It sounded good to me so I joined on and I met a lot of great people and did a lot of cool things so I guess that’s why I stayed. I made good friends amongst the other sports editors and writers. I had a lot of fun doing game coverage like football and basketball and hockey. Meeting writers doing that and getting to do cool features stories too.
Q: How would you define the Sports section?
We try and do our best to cover all NC State sports, and not just NC State sports, but local North Carolina sports as well … breaking news, game coverage, commentaries about things that are going on and features about different athletes and coaches. We try to bring as much in-depth coverage of all the different sports as we can.
Q: What do you like about your section?
I think one of the cool things about our section is we’re going out, doing game coverage and whatnot, doing the same thing as a lot of other professional publication in the area and we’re getting to meet and interact with these professional writers, which is obviously very beneficial to anybody who wants to make a career in this field.
Q: What makes a good Sports story?
Something that takes you in. Not just on the field, but shows you what an athlete is like off the field — their personality or a cool story about them. It goes into something different and shows you something that wouldn’t be obvious or already known about somebody.
Jessica Hernandez, Technician Photo Editor
Q: How did you get involved with Technician and why did you stay?
I went to a local high school, Sanderson, and I knew about Technician while I was working for the student paper at Sanderson High School. I wanted to continue working for a newspaper after high school so I got involved as soon as I transferred last spring. I’ve stayed because I’ve gained more responsibility, from being a correspondent to becoming a staff photographer to now a photo editor.
Q: How would you define the Photo section?
The Photo section is a group of correspondents, staff photographers, senior staff photographers, and editors who go out and shoot diverse events on campus. Whether they are interviews, or sporting events, concerts, festivals happening downtown, our job is to take pictures to support the articles that go in the Agromeck, Technician and Nubian Message.
Q: What do you like about your section?
I like that our section is really creative and that it’s our job as photographers/artists to take words and turn them into a visual representation. That can be whatever we see fit or whatever the story means to us. We can turn it into whatever visual representation we think is best.
Q: Do you need photo equipment to work for the section?
No, you do not have to own your own photo equipment. You can, but we also have gear that you can rent.
Q: What makes a good photo for a story?
The number one thing is getting faces, especially reactions to whatever is going on. If you can capture emotions, that makes for the best photo of all.
Nick Weaver, Design Editor
Q: How did you get involved with Technician and why did you stay?
I got started because I work for Eye on the Triangle at WKNC and there was some cooperation between the Features [now Arts & Entertainment] section and Eye on the Triangle, trying to get a certain amount of stories out and sharing staff. I was contacted by Technician to write music and album reviews on behalf of WKNC. That also lead to me writing an opinion piece, writing comics, doing a couple of interviews and events coverage. Eventually, I was asked to interview for the position of design editor, for which I was hired.
Q: What makes good design on a page?
There’s obviously a lot of theory about that. What we do is standardized so there’s less guesswork. You want to make sure that the elements on the page are balanced. Pictures, photos, captions, text — everything needs to have its own weight and its own power, but it needs to be categorized and balanced in a way that makes sense for the amount of information displayed. Visually, elements on the page need to be represented with care and notice taken towards how important they are and how much space they need to take up. Obviously interesting designs come from playing around with these boundaries and doing interesting things with the text and the pictures. The best designs are things that are purely inspired and work perfectly with the text, but you don’t always have room for that. Good page layout is functional page layout. If people can look at and say ‘that looks nice and clean and gets the point across.’
Q: What are you looking for in a design staff
A design staff [laughs]. In a design staff member, I would be looking for somebody who is willing to learn. We aren’t just looking for people with the skill set already in mind, we want people that are going to come in, be willing to pick up the craft and take their time to get used to it and learn. We can use anybody who’s willing to put their hands on the software and say ‘I’m open to trying to get my way towards doing this,’ because it’s not the hardest job in the world. It’s not an easy one or one that we take lightly, but it’s one that you can do with enough experience.
Mary Goughnour, Co-Social Media Manager
Q: How did you get involved with Technician and why did you stay?
I got involved my first week of freshman year. I joined the photo staff and started completing my correspondency. The first assignment I covered was actually my own freshman convocation. I took a semester off to get classes in order and settle in, but in the spring semester I finished my photo correspondency and became a staff photographer. I’m now a senior staff photographer on the photo staff because it is my passion and what I want to do later in life.
I applied to be social media manager because I believe that photo has a very unique connection to social. Knowing more about photo assignments and the weight that they carry when stories are being released is very important to social because it is the first thing people see. A lot of times they are what helps attract readers and bring them in to read the actual story or see whatever was being covered on the assignment.
Q: Where can people find Technician’s coverage?
You can find the Technician’s coverage on every major social media platform. We have Facebook. We have Twitter. Not only do we have one Twitter, but we actually have two Twitter accounts, one for sports individually and one for all other coverage. We also have an Instagram that is very popular and is good for photos.
Handles:
Website: technicianonline.com
Facebook: Technician
Twitter: @NCSUTechnician @TechSports
Instagram: @ncsutechnician
Aditi Dholakia, fourth-year, studying communication with a concentration in media.
