Sara Wilson: Tell me about the Crimson Crier.

Savannah Bullard: We were a broadsheet newspaper. We ran 12-16 pages, about 80 percent color and 20 percent black and white. I guess we were considered monthly for the academic year. We did eight  issues per year. We were really great. We went to a lot of competitions and stuff like that.

 

SW: What scholastic press associations were you a part of?

SB: ASPA, which is actually housed here. We went to the Southern Interscholastic Press Association (SIPA) and that is in Columbia, South Carolina at USC. We also were a part of JEA and NSPA.

 

SW: What was the structure of the paper like?

SB: So, we had an editor in chief. They were obviously first in command behind the advisor. During my junior year, we created a position for managing editor, so that was a position for two years. Down the chain of command is the in-depth editor, news editor, sports editor, opinion editor, and lifestyle editor. Those are the desk editors, and then we had a chief copy editor, photo editor, and a web editor. I think we had a social media editor at one point as well. No assistants or anything like that. So the news editor would read all the news stories and edit them, and then design the news pages. Generally, editors would have about two pages apiece unless it was a bigger issue. And then the editor in chief would design the cover. Editors could write stories, and you could hope across desks. There were no “sports writers,” but people had their specific interests.

 

SW: How many students were on the staff?

SB: We probably had around 40. I went to a big high school. When I graduated, the entire school was 1,860. Yearbook was considerably smaller at about 18 staff members.

 

SW: So what did you do on staff?

SB: I started in 10th grade. I obviously didn’t do anything then. They called us “cubbies,” but we were staff writers. During junior year, I was news editor. And senior year, I was in-depth editor. During sophomore year, I filled in for one issue for the lifestyles editor. That’s where I got my design start.

 

SW: What were some of the main strengths and main weaknesses of the program?

SB: When I was there, we were great. We were amazing, honestly. My junior year was probably the best year we’ve ever had.

 

SW: How do you measure that?

SB: Awards won, specifically for ASPA. We went to the convention every year, and we dominated every year. We still do, even though the paper has gone a little bit downhill. There are four senior awards you can win for newspaper at ASPA, and our editor in chief won all four during my junior year. It had never happened before. You can win one or two, but never really all four. The Journalist of the Year the year before that was from Sparkman. Two years before that, they also came from Sparkman. The Journalist of the Year this year is from Sparkman. So, we win consistently on that level. And, also on the national level, we do really well for the on-site awards. When I was there, we were like seventh in the nation sophomore year, third in the nation junior year, and ninth in the nation senior year. We always stay right in the top ten. I guess that's how we evaluated ourselves, on those awards, and we were always winning. We’ve won crowns and Pacemakers. Historically, it a very good, robust program. It started going downhill maybe during my senior year. Senior year was a very good year, but considerably less so than the year before. I attribute that to our new principal. He is big on censorship. Huge on it. He sucks.

 

SW: How did that manifest itself? Was there a specific incident or story?

SB: There was a student sophomore year who wrote a satirical sports story about stereotypes that different athletes face. The football players were “meatheads.” And the baseball players were “rich daddy’s boys,” and things like that. They included a bunch of different sports, including dance. They said that the dance team was really just out there to shake their booties and didn’t really have technical dance experience. They weren’t good. They just sat there poppin’ and lockin’ and throwing it all out there. There were little subheads in this story—it’s funny now—so football was “The Meathead” and baseball was “Daddy’s Boy.” The editor in chief of the paper suggested the dance subhead to be “The Harlot.” The editor in chief said it! So that fresh little sophomore writer went along with it and threw it on there. In the writer’s defense, that subhead was suggested by the editor in chief and went through two copy editors, the sports editor, and the advisor, and then got printed. And the dance team threw a fit! They were ready to throw down. Moms were calling for the writer’s expulsion, for their advisor to be fired, for the principal to be fired. The superintendent was involved. It was a whole thing. So the writer had to issue an apology to the dance team, and it was really bad. Was the writer’s article true? To be determined. So, prior review where the principal looks at the paper before it is printed was established that next year. However, our principal was amazing. He really did not care. He knew the writer didn’t mean it, that it was blown out of proportion. Well, then that principal left. Our new principal is awful. He is such a stickler. We did a story about hunting, because we are from Northern Alabama and everyone hunts. So we just did a graphic of the crosshair. No gun. Not even a deer behind the crosshair, and he made us change it. It’s no secret that he hates our advisor and our program. He is just always out to get us, it feels like.

 

SW: Does the school contribute funding?

SB: No, we are completely self-funded with grants and ad sales. And we pay dues.

 

SW: What do you attribute the strengths to? Was there a beginning journalism infrastructure? Or did people jump into their role and figure it out for themselves?

SB: Speaking from my experience and the class that I got to go through with, we had amazing people preceding us. Riley Wallace was the editor in chief my sophomore year, and now she goes to Belmont. She was a great leader and very passionate. And the editor in chief the next year was just nuts—she was so, so good. She was an amazing mentor. We always talk about how the editor in chief has to be the advisor’s Yes Man, because the advisor needs one. But she was definitely not a Yes Man, and I loved that about her. So, we just had amazing people leading us and amazing people to look up to. When we got to be seniors, we were the ones that they looked up to. But the greatness kind of ended with us. The next year, after we graduated, they had a not-so-great editor and they had to change around editors, and they kind of lost their fire. It is just slowly going downhill in a way that I don’t know if it can be fixed. And that is due to the amount of care that the students have, and the amount of care the advisor has. The pushback from the principal is definitely discouraging. So, it is a lot of factors.

 

SW: Tell me about advisor. What made her strong?

SB: She lives and breathes journalism. She is from North Alabama. She went to UA and now works at Sparkman with her husband. She loves the program so much. Her strengths are that she has deep ties. She has been with the program forever and has seen greatness, and that is why she expects greatness because she knows the potential. She is a really great leader and could pull it together. I mean, we had a sports editor at one point who really didn’t care, but she could jump on the computer and design those pages. She was the glue that kept us together at one point. But, her weaknesses—she gets very easily frazzled. You kind of have to know how to “work” her. Like, until something is a crisis, don’t tell her. Things are running the best when she is the most hands off, because that means we’ve got everything covered. But she’s always ready to go to bat for you.

 

SW: Tell me about your most poignant experience in high school journalism.

SB: My claim to fame was when during junior and senior year they wanted to allocate a bunch of money to us from the county commission to build a new high school. It was all kind of secretive and weird because of one of the commissioners. There’s the Harvest side and the Monrovia side—the two unincorporated areas. Monrovia is wealthy, and Harvest is more country and rural and poor and black. They wanted to build a school in Monrovia, and it was going to cost so much money. So we get all this money for the county school system, and they wanted to allocate every last cent of it to this new high school. It would only build the walls. The money wouldn’t even put desks in the classroom. It was a horrible waste of money, but the parents wanted it because they didn’t want their kids going to school with poor people and black people. That’s just the truth. I am not trying to be objective anymore. So, we fought it head on. We spoke at board meetings. We wrote about it extensively. We just badgered commissioners. There is one commissioner who just hates me so much now. So we fought tooth and nail, and our advisor fought with us. When we had old, white men breathing down our necks trying to get us to stop, she was right there with us. We developed a really good relationship with the superintendent and really just got in there and did journalism. And to this day, there is no new high school. It was honestly one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.

 

SW: I want to transition to how your high school involvement impacted your college involvement. So were you always on the Crimson White?

SB: No, I started my sophomore year. During my freshman year, I was so excited and I beelined it to the table during Get on Board Day and I was just met with some serious cold shoulders. It was very intimidating and they didn’t seem very interested in me, so I was discouraged. I got involved sophomore year.

 

SW: How does your experience with the Crimson White compare to your experience with the Crimson Crier? Did it prepare you?

SB: I should start here my mentioning that I didn’t start at the Crimson Crier because I wanted to. I was over at the ninth grade school and I really needed a schedule filler. I saw applications one day for the newspaper and the yearbook and decided to go for the newspaper. I went into it thinking I was just going to write a little bit and get an easy A. And then it ended up being my whole ass career. But now, obviously I love college journalism more because you’re making two per week versus four per semester. So, when you were in high school, you had to make those eight issues per year count. It was always difficult. I fell in love with designing, so being able to design twice a week is nice. I like the fast pace style. Also, the CW is fully independent from the university, and is a fully student-run organization. Even though we have bosses that cut our checks, we don’t have to follow a single one of their ideas. Whereas, in high school, we were under the heavy hand of our advisor. I love the independence. I love being able to do it more consistently and put out things that are more relevant. It is just a more mature publication. In high school, I mean you can get away with fun graphics or making the background pink.

 

SW: What experiences from high school most prepared you for college?

SB: Honestly, having the high level journalism program I did has made my major such a breeze. I mean, we had AP Style shoved down our throats since we were 14. But people can make it to junior and senior year here without knowing AP Style. That haunts me. I just don’t have a hard time in my journalism classes because I was taught well how to write a story. I feel like I could write or design anything. Because of how our newsroom worked—that the editors did everything—it just made things a lot easier for me here. I can wear so many hats.

 

SW: What is that big “why” for you for journalism?

SB: Oh, Lord. What can I say that is not cliche? If I weren’t going to be a journalist, I’d probably be a lawyer. I love talking to people. I’ve always loved writing. I’ve always loved talking to people and hearing their stories and hunting for those little things that people often miss. It’s just about talking to people and hearing what makes their eyes light up. That’s invaluable. I love being able to tell the truth and make sure people know when they are being underserved. And when they know that something is not how it is supposed to be, and bringing change and not having new high schools be built. I am not afraid to make people mad and just go after it. Journalism is such a career where you hit it head on every day. I am very headstrong and persistent and passionate, and it is all because of this. I really owe it to the craft for building me up this way. And now I am about to be the editor in chief of the Crimson White, and it is all because I got started in high school.