The Yearbook Whys Podcast

We channel our inner David Letterman on this one, giving you a Top Ten List of Opportunities and Things to Remember as we confront a back-to-school season like no other. Joining me for the chat are Alicia Merrifield and Callie Williams, two advisers I bonded with at the Journalism Teachers Facebook Group this spring. You don't want to miss it — some of this is practical "try this!" and other parts are more head & heart reminders and cautions as we look to the months ahead in our yearbook lives. You can reach Alicia at [email protected] and Callie at [email protected].

Need Theme Development resources? Go back one episode in the feed to "Theme in 25," and find our resources at tinyurl.com/theme25. Advisers, please use the episode and resources with your students in your distance learning plans and 2021 theme development! There's a PDF notes page and brainstorming tool that will help kick off your program's development for the year ahead.

JEA has made free instructional resources available to advisers here, and you can find Yearbook Chat with Jim, Ask Mike, Mind the Gutter and The Yearbook Whys anywhere you get your podcasts.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

This one's a long time coming — originally recorded on May 28, 2020, this roundtable discussion brings together advisers, creative consultants and publisher reps from across the nation to look at staff training, coverage planning, photography, team building and yearbooking in the moment we're living in now. Watch for a follow-up episode in your feed in the next day or so. Many thanks to Jeff, Kristin, Brooke, Jed, Stephen, and Becky for joining me to chat all those months ago.

Need Theme Development resources? Go back one episode in the feed to "Theme in 25," and find our resources at tinyurl.com/theme25. Advisers, please use the episode and resources with your students in your distance learning plans and 2021 theme development! There's a PDF notes page and brainstorming tool that will help kick off your program's development for the year ahead.

JEA has made free instructional resources available to advisers here, and you can find Yearbook Chat with Jim, Ask Mike, Mind the Gutter and The Yearbook Whys anywhere you get your podcasts.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

NOTE: This episode comes with a guided notes PDF worksheet, a look at a gallery of 2019 yearbooks and other resources, all linked at tinyurl.com/theme25. Advisers, please use this episode and resources with your students in your distance learning plans and 2021 theme development! There's a PDF notes page and brainstorming tool that will help kick off your program's development for the year ahead.

Award-winning adviser and friend of the podcast Carrie Faust, MJE, joins Mike for another look at theme development for yearbook staffs and advisers. In this rapid-fire primer, they discuss a proven approach to development that puts first things first, starting with story.

Again, check out tinyurl.com/theme25 for accompanying resources to use with yearbook staffs.

Need more coronavirus and end-of-book coverage ideas? Check these out!.

Find Gimp, the open-source, FREE Photoshop clone here.

JEA has made free instructional resources available to advisers here, and you can find Yearbook Chat with Jim, Ask Mike, Mind the Gutter and The Yearbook Whys anywhere you get your podcasts.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

They may be stuck at home, but yearbook staffs and editors across the country are finding creative ways to reimagine and extend coverage to include the pandemic while still working toward their final deadlines. From retrieving files via wifi while parked in the school parking to interviewing in unconventional ways to getting a laugh from an adviser's coronavirus memes on GroupMe, we hear stories from yearbook editors at The Lion (McKinney HS, Texas), Madrono (Palo Alto HS, Calif.) and the Black & Gold (Rock Canyon HS, Colo.) as they establish new routines and norms for themselves and their staffs. A big shoutout goes to these editors' advisers and ALL of you advisers out there figuring this out one day at a time!

Need more coronavirus and end-of-book coverage ideas? Check these out!.

Find Gimp, the open-source, FREE Photoshop clone here.

JEA has made free instructional resources available to advisers here, and you can find Yearbook Chat with Jim, Ask Mike, Mind the Gutter and The Yearbook Whys anywhere you get your podcasts.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

It's a new world for our students and us, and the journalism can — and must — continue!

I know many of you have cameras locked away in your publication labs, so I wanted to take some time to talk with one of the best photo instructors in the country to figure out how our student journalists can create opportunities for ongoing coverage as our school years continue. My conversation with Mark Murray is a long one, yes — but we talk about real, practical tips you can use with your staffs to cover life in your communities visually. From DIY at-home photo studios to iPhone apps that give you manual control to free alternatives to Photoshop, there's a LOT in this episode.

You can look at some of the resources we discuss here.

Check out Mark's organization, ATPI here.

Find Gimp, the open-source, FREE Photoshop clone here.

Check out more on

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

First up: take care of yourselves, and mind your health. I hope you and yours are ok, safe, healthy — and that you have toilet paper.

What a time for a global pandemic to hit — apparently the coronavirus didn't get the memo about yearbook final deadline season! I talked with retired adviser Lori Oglesbee-Petter about how tackle the final deadline and adapt to covering our schools and communities through the school shutdowns, strategies for accommodating blank pages and maybe even creating a spring supplement, and ways to maintain routine and normalcy for our kids — and even come out stronger as a program and staff on the other side.

JEA has made free instructional resources available to advisers here, and you can find Yearbook Chat with Jim, Ask Mike, Mind the Gutter and The Yearbook Whys anywhere you get your podcasts.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

This hour-long episode contains an interview in which we get into some tough and sensitive topics, including a discussion of how yearbook and journalism students cover suicide.

In this episode, I welcome master adviser Ellen Austin (The Harker School, Calif.) to the podcast for a discussion about supporting yearbook staffs in covering topics that are often perceived as sensitive, including everything from vaping to LGBTQ+ students, to how yearbooks identify transgender students and cover students who have died by suicide. We also talk about the wonderful opportunities we have to support our students' learning in student journalism, where so often they don't get it right the first time. These are topics we address regularly in our own lab at Tesserae, and I hope you find the conversation thought-provoking.

For additional resources on covering suicide in student media, please take a look at this from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma out of the Columbia Journalism School.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

That's that tough time of the year - perhaps most loathed by yearbook advisers: January. From frustrated (and frustrating) students to seniors ready to graduate to ceaseless demands of deadlines, these weeks in the mid-winter can be the hardest of the year. With this episode, we kick off season three of the podcast and talk with veteran adviser and Journalism Education Association President Sarah Nichols (MJE), adviser of Whitney Student Media in Rocklin, Calif., about how to handle our winter woes, motivate and support our staffs, and take care of ourselves. Too, we get into all the reasons you should be a member of JEA — and trust me, there are plenty!

To learn more about JEA, click here.

Check out Sarah's book recommendation, The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek.

Keep the conversation going with me at [email protected]— I'd love to hear from you.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

It's Jed and Mike, two bald guys with cameras, back again! This is the audio from my presentation with Jed Palmer (Eagle Eye View yearbook at Sierra MS, Parker, Colo.) at the Washington D.C. National High School Journalism Convention. We're frequent collaborators on all things photo, and this presentation captures a lot of the questions we're asked and tips & tricks we regularly offer to advisers and journalism students alike. From lighting portraits to how to use the Creative Commons to get photos you can't otherwise, there's something in here for everyone.

It'd be great to hear from you — you can reach me at [email protected] and find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Students' voices matter, and student journalists' voices are silenced by administrative overreach and censorship far more often than most of us are likely aware. Recently, I had the opportunity to share a message of empowerment and advocacy with nearly 800 students at the Garden State Scholastic Press Association's Fall Conference — that message is presented here as an episode of the podcast.

I know that these topics can challenge advisers, editors and staffs at yearbooks and other publications, but the fight for our students' First Amendment rights is a worthy one, and one I invite you to join in. Thirty-six states operate under the Hazelwood standard, giving school officials far too much control over what news students in their communities can access. Join us in the New Voices campaign to restore the Tinker standard to our schools! For more on New Voices, visit the Student Press Law Center's website and follow @SPLC on Twitter.

Find the podcast on Twitter at @YearbookWhys. Please share the podcast online or with friends in your yearbook network, or leave a review on Apple iTunes; it helps others find the podcast! Share a review here: Apple iTunes

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.