The Chronicle, Vox Populi and HWTV will be combined into one program, called HW Media, starting in the 2023-2024 school year. Now a part of the Interdisciplinary Studies and Independent Research (ISIR) department, HW Media will involve all school publications, including those at the middle school.
Former Communications Department Chair and Current HW Media Director Jen Bladen said the combination of publications will help them share one another’s resources.
“When I first started here, the thing that was most shocking to me was that [school publications] didn’t share assets, we didn’t share lessons, we didn’t share all the things that communications should share,” Bladen said. “So much of what we do has overlap. [HW Media] came out of wanting to share assets.”
Bladen said the foundational goal of HW Media is to prepare students for journalism beyond high school.
“The deep reason [for HW Media] is because when you leave [the school], this is what you’re going to be asked to do,” Bladen said. “When you go to a college, or if you were to get a professional job, or if you were interning, you would be asked to take your own photo, write your own story, edit it, post it online. Each individual reporter is responsible for their story all the way through.”
HW Media students participated in the inaugural retreat in Big Bear Lake from Aug. 14-15 where they participated in team building and bonding activities. Yearbook Editor-in-Chief Zoe Fribourg ’24 said she enjoyed the chance to get to know people from other publications.
“There were so many more Chronicle people than yearbook people on the retreat so it was really helpful to get to know everyone and start making those connections,” Fribourg said. “[The retreat] really made us feel like one team instead of a separate Chronicle and yearbook and HWTV.”
All communications students will be enrolled in HW Media I, II or III. These classes will be randomly assigned compared to prior years when classes have been separated by publication. Fribourg said she anticipates communication between classes to be a challenge.
“I think the hardest thing to adjust to will probably be the different blocks because I know that the Chronicle and yearbook people were split up between block five and block seven,” Fribourg said. “So, we have to really focus on communication.”
Chronicle Staff Writer Sienna Dall’Olmo ’26 said she would prefer to only write for The Chronicle.
“I think it’s cool that they’re trying to give everybody an opportunity to write whatever they’re passionate about,” Dall’Olmo said. “But I’m wondering if it’ll be kind of confusing during the classroom period when there’s so many different types of media all working at the same time. I’m just not really interested in yearbook or broadcast as much as I am in Chronicle. I was hoping that I could just feel part of the Chronicle team and it doesn’t really feel like that.”