Emma Krause: I figured out my place on staff through trial and error

Deciding what I wanted to do on Harbinger took many trials and a whole lot of error.

After being head editor for the Indian Hills journalism staff and taking Journalism 1 freshman year, I knew I wanted to be a writer and tell other people’s stories. So becoming a staff writer was a no-brainer, but I also chose to be a page designer to broaden my skills — big mistake.

I don’t remember much about my semester designing pages, but I do remember sitting in a cubicle in the library with former Design Editor Anna Mitchell during a deadline watching her redesign my whole page from the fonts to layout because of how bad it was.

Designing was clearly not my thing.

When I was reapplying for my second semester, I saw “Podcast Editor” on the long list of possible positions. I immediately went to my then-Online-Editor Sophie Henschel since I had heard her previously say how important the Harbinger’s Podcast was to her. I asked her endless questions about podcasts such as “Is it hard to edit a podcast?” “What would I talk about?” and “Do people even listen to it?” But I knew regardless of her answer I’d apply since I’d always wanted to have my own podcast to broaden my skills on staff.

After a semester of creating podcasts and learning about how to use the audio board for my series “Just the Three of Us” with staffers MJ Wolf and Audrey Condon, I was hooked. But I wanted to do more than just talk into a mic for 20 minutes. I applied for video staff going into my senior year to combine my middle school journalism photography skills with my audio knowledge from Tate’s guest speakers. I created a “videocast” series called Story Spotlight that let me include podcast equipment with cameras. 

So sure, it took three years, but there’s something to learn from every aspect of Harbinger staff and I’m glad I landed on podcasts and videos.