Our Cover Letter would be incomplete if it didn’t include a guide to joining The News-Letter! If you see any sections that interest you, feel free to reach out at managing@jhunewsletter.com or the section’s email on our website.
Section breakdown:
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News & Features: the backbone of the paper (as expected). Our news section provides the latest breaking stories happening around campus, from big announcements like the free tuition change to the emergence of a new start-up organization. Writers can learn investigative journalism skills, meet with campus organizations and personaities and get plugged into events happening around Baltimore and DC!
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Opinion: Got a hot take? Send it over to our Opinion Editor. This section has a wide range of topics meant to stir up conversation, whether it’s about the state of Homewood Campus’ avian biodiversity or the modern-day situationship. Writing for this section means developing your skills in putting together a strong argument, which goes for expressing any new perspective surrounding things like the politics in current events or construction projects on campus.
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Sports: If you want to know how our Blue Jays measure up in the epic highs and lows of college sports, you’ll find some great commentary here. Maybe a streak for the Super Bowl predictions roundtable is in the cards for the future? Freddy, one of our Sports Editors, was quite close last year. You don’t need to know every single rule of a sport or player of a team to contribute as long as you have an interest in whatever sport you’re writing about.
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Science & Technology (SciTech): Curious about the scientific innovation happening around you? At a school as STEM-heavy as Hopkins, there are practically hundreds of opportunities to learn about new developments in research from the undergraduate to Nobel Prize level, science policy, fellowships and more! Writers get ample opportunities to attend scientific seminars, interview professors, and explore the state of science in our local and national communities.
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Voices: If you’ve ever imagined yourself publishing a piece in a column with a catchy title reminiscent of ‘90s romcoms, this section is for you. From heartwarming childhood stories to relatable college experiences, this flexible section welcomes your own unapologetic, unique anecdotes. Whether it’s a song you really like that carried you through high school or your recent reflections on your hometown, as long as it can be somehow expressed in writing, you can showcase it all here.
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Arts & Entertainment: That album/book/movie/play/exhibit/concert that’s been stuck in your head? The Arts section gives you a chance to showcase your opinions and hot takes! The section also gives writers access to free concert tickets in the vibrant local Baltimore arts scene.
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Leisure: Take a break with the Leisure section and learn about shops, restaurants and things to do in Baltimore. You get to connect with local business owners too! The section is also ripe with fun hobbies, dorm decor, personal recipes and weekend plans.
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Public: If a fourth-wall break was a section, this would be it. Our Public Editor acts as the bridge between The News-Letter and the student body, keeping a good balance between the two. After a (short) break in the cycle, the Public Editor role is back! This means that students (you) can share your thoughts to our Public Editor about how The News-Letter is doing.
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Magazine: What you’re reading right now! The News-Letter publishes four magazines a year covering unique themes like personal growth, social media and politics, and the gamification of life.
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Copy: Our last line of defense before an article reaches your hands. Changing “3” to “three,” when to use en dashes over hyphens, and how to refer to specific buildings on campus are all part of the proofreading job. If you’ve got an eye for detail, our copy staff is always looking for people to train in the Associated Press style. This is one of our most important sections, but at the same time, it is also one of the more low-commitment roles because of its flexibility. If you have a particularly busy schedule but still want to get involved with the paper, this could be where to start.
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Social Media: We are actively recruiting social media managers! As one of the most common platforms that college students use, Instagram serves as one of our major spaces to release breaking news and other pressing information. Follow our Instagram @jhunewsletter to be some of the first to know about Hopkins-specific news, such as campus protests and the annual commencement speaker.
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Design & Layout: This wonderful team makes our paper look fresh and aesthetic. Thank them for the graphs as well! Any and all visually creative people that want to put their portfolio skills out into the world: we are sending out a call for your talents. If authors for articles need eye-catching visuals to sit at the top of their pieces, our Design & Layout editors are who we need to make their visions a reality.
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Video: The video section is our newest section! Expanding into video journalism, we produce three minute long documentaries focusing on events happening not only on Homewood Campus but also in Baltimore. If you’re interested in the art of visual storytelling, the section would love to have you! While we’d love any previous experience, none is required to get invlved. We also have our own video and sound equipment that you can use.
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Puzzles: Ever since The New York Times crossword got put behind a paywall, our Puzzles section has been quite the boredom killer in long lectures (and it’s free!). Our Puzzles editors are constantly cooking up new ways to challenge your intellect.
Our hopes is that at least one, if not a few, of these sections have piqued your interest. As a completely student-run newspaper, we are always looking for eager and creative minds in any and all aspects, so if you’ve taken a particular liking to any of these sections, don’t hold back and contact us! We hope to see you (and your work) in the very near future!
Our first interactions with The News-Letter:
As freshmen, you will often hear that first impressions are important. And although this is true to a certain extent, The News-Letter is a place of development and change, where both writers and editors learn new things and hone different skills throughout their time with the paper. So in honor of this principle, we would like to speak on our own first impressions of the newspaper and how they’ve changed over time in hopes that you readers might see yourselves in similar journeys.
Ayden:
My first days with The News-Letter were when I started out as a copyreader in my freshman year as an assistant to the copy editors. At the time, my role felt so minor and almost marginal to what I would eventually see in the print editions weeks later, but as I continued to read more and more pieces, I gradually started to see that the paper was a much more tight-knit community than I had initially thought. Over time, I became familiar with all the section editors and learned how extensive the publishing process actually was. This didn’t mean that it made the staff more distant; rather, it brought them closer together in order to deliver the best version of the paper that they could.
During my entire time with the paper thus far, I’ve continued to learn new things with every new staff member that I meet and every new piece that I read. At first, I was a little worried about all the deadlines and structure that come with the nature of publishing, but the work that goes into bringing content and information to our readers is some of the most fulfilling that I’ve done during my time in college thus far. Now, each piece that I come across is an opportunity to learn not just about the subject matter of the writing itself, but about the writer, and in a greater sense, what is important to the Hopkins student body and communities. This has made each of my experiences at Hopkins feel all the more real, which I imagine is important to all the freshmen readers just about to start this journey.
Ayden Min is a senior majoring in International Studies from Los Angeles, Calif. She is a Managing Editor for The News-Letter.
Alex:
I was visiting Hopkins before admissions decisions came out in the spring of my senior year, aimlessly roaming around campus and exploring the buildings. When I found myself in the Gilman Atrium, I saw a copy of The News-Letter on one of the tables. I picked it up, flipped through it and started the crossword on the back page. I was so enthralled that I carried the paper through the rain back to my friend’s house just to finish the puzzle. Evidently, it was a very good crossword. And I decided that, if I had the chance to go to Hopkins, I wanted to join The News-Letter.
What I remember most from my first SciTech article (on the effects of a Category 4 hurricane) was the willingness of professors to engage with undergraduates at Hopkins. As I’ve continued writing and editing with The News-Letter, I’ve gotten the chance to learn so much from professors, students and researchers at the University. If there’s anything new writers want to learn about work being done at Hopkins, a quick email to an expert in that field is sure to satisfy their curiosities.
Alex Pan is a junior majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Dallas, Texas. He is a Managing Editor for The News-Letter.
