Established in 1958, the Redwood Bark has been a primary source for Redwood High School and Marin County news. We are currently made up of 56 student journalists at Redwood High School who have been given the opportunity to utilize this outlet as a means of a public forum for expression. Here, we strive to inform the student body and staff about the happenings of our school, our community and the greater world.

Together, we work towards producing a monthly publication using print media, not to mention our online digital media platform where we publish additional articles and multimedia at redwoodbark.org. This is a behind-the-scenes look into how we, the Redwood Bark staff, run our month-long process of reaching our final product. To learn more, scroll down below.

The Initiation:
In order for students to be considered into the Bark, they are required to enroll in a year-long prerequisite elective course entitled Nonfiction during their sophomore or junior year. Here, they will learn the essential basics of journalism that will prepare them for everything that they will need to know before becoming a part of the Bark staff. These essentials include but are not limited to: interviewing techniques, writing in a journalistic style, avoiding bias and maintaining ethics.

After passing the class as well as creating a portfolio application that places the student in the applicant pool for the Bark, new members are chosen by the Bark advisor and Nonfiction teacher based on academic achievement and performance during their enrollment in Nonfiction. During this application process, students also have the opportunity to apply for a Bark leadership position. The various leadership roles are listed below along with a general synopsis of their extended responsibilities beyond writing stories.

Editor in Chief (EIC): oversees all Bark operations and conducts lessons in class

Copy Editor: responsible for editing all articles throughout the editing process

Section Editor (News, Feature, Lifestyle, Review, Sports, Opinion, Spanish, Video, Podcast): assigns stories, edits pieces, consults reporters and lays out pages for print for their respective section

Business Manager: oversees all business operations (i.e. advertising)

Social Media Manager: oversees all social media traffic and posts (Instagram, Twitter)

Survey Manager: oversees and operates all survey operations; surveys are completed with the purpose of providing statistical information that relate to specific stories in certain cycles

Art Consultant: responsible for overseeing art operations (i.e., front cover, illustrations, photos)

All other members of the staff are referred to as reporters who primarily report on various stories and provide our publication with content. During every cycle, each reporter is responsible for reporting on two stories while students with leadership positions are responsible for one. In addition, all staff are responsible for training and mentoring Nonfiction students throughout the year by editing their stories as well as providing answers to any inquiries. Bark students are referred to as “Barkies,” and nonfiction students are referred to as “Cubbies.”

The Process:
In this section, we will overview each step of our story and publishing process in the Bark.

While our month-long process for each cycle is extensive, it ensures that our final product each month upholds the quality that we desire. At the beginning of the week following publishing day, the next cycle begins again with story planning and the process is repeated for the next issue.

Conclusion:
Whether you are interested in becoming a future Barkie or are just simply curious about our work ethic in the Bark, we hope that you are now informed about how we function as a collective to produce our monthly publication.

We are also always open to any further concerns, feedback and letter to the editor submissions through this contact: [email protected]