The Seattle Prep Panther has been providing our school with a monthly publication of stories on student life, sports and other local, national and world events for decades. How would you like to learn about the inner-workings of your newspaper?

A Prep journalist applies for their position with the Panther by filling out a simple application and submitting a sample written article. Once accepted to this elite group of journalists, the new journalist learns the work ethics and traditions of creating the monthly newspaper. At the beginning of each month all the editors and journalists come together to brainstorm story ideas. Articles are selected and then assigned and the journalists are sent into the field to do their research.

After weeks of interviewing persons of interest, gathering facts and information, articles begin to be crafted.  During this time, the editors are busy ”building team morale” according to Senior Editor Maggie Delaney.

Flying away on the keyboard, the journalists exchange ideas and craft their articles. Articles range in length and depth, although most articles average 500 words with blog articles averaging 300 words. To make articles eye catching, your Prep journalists use pictures taken with their professional Nikon cameras. Unless it is a special issue of newspaper, the pictures are gray-scaled or turned black and white. As newspaper is a technologically up to date organization, the journalists and editors have set up a website so that all articles published in the newspaper  and other exclusive articles can be accessed via www.seapreppanther.org

Once articles are complete, they are submitted for further review from senior editors and the almighty newspaper moderator, Mr. Richardson. Journalists are also assigned to do page layouts where articles and pictures are arranged into the digital layout to be published. Sunday meeting are sometimes necessary to complete the layout. The newspaper pages are combined in a single document and sent to the publisher to be printed. After this month of work, the result is the beautiful Prep Panther that is distributed to the student body personally by your newspaper staff. While sometimes met with resistance during the distribution process, journalists just want to make sure that every student wanting to read a copy of this illustrious publication, receives a copy.

One of the favorite traditions of the newsroom is The Wall. The Wall is a collection of awkward pictures taken of  newspaper staff by the newspaper staff themselves. Journalists are known to seek out prime photo opportunities of their colleagues while many staff members hide from the camera. Once a picture of ultimate perfection is taken, it takes its place on The Wall for public view.

Newspaper is a window activity and the staff shares a great camaraderie with one another. If you are at all interested in being a part of the newspaper staff, it is highly recommended that you check it out as the staff is always looking for new young journalists. Stop by Room 211 if you are interested, our door is always open.