What does it take to build a newspaper from the ground up—and what do you learn after doing it every week for a year?

In this episode of the Teen Exec Podcast, host Natalya Lucas speaks with Melissa Russell, founding and managing editor of the Weston Observer, and Chris Larrabee, assistant editor, as the newspaper celebrates its first anniversary.

Melissa and Chris share what it was like to launch a newspaper without the systems, relationships, and institutional knowledge of an established publication. They talk about getting to know a community, building relationships with sources, creating the infrastructure needed to produce a weekly paper, and learning about Weston while simultaneously reporting on it.

The conversation also goes behind the scenes of producing the Observer. Melissa and Chris explain how they decide what is newsworthy, manage competing stories and deadlines, and adjust when plans change. Looking back on their first year, they discuss how experience has given them stronger relationships, deeper knowledge of the community, and a better sense of where to focus their attention.

For students interested in journalism, they offer practical advice about curiosity, listening, preparation, asking good questions, accepting feedback, and learning from mistakes. They also share their own paths into journalism—and why neither started college expecting to become a journalist.

Natalya closes by reflecting on a lesson that extends beyond journalism: many skills develop through experience—trying something, seeing what works, adjusting, and being better prepared the next time. She also shares what writing a student column for the Weston Observer has taught her about contributing to a larger community conversation.

Many thanks to the Weston Media Center for helping us record and edit this episode.

Resources & Links:

• You can read my reflections on the interview here: Experience Is Part of the Training
• Weston Observer
• Above the Fold, the Weston Observer podcast
• Weston Media Center
• Visit TeenExec.com for blog posts, tools, and upcoming programs
• Join Teen Exec on Instagram and LinkedIn

Hi, and welcome to the Teen Exec podcast, where we explore how real people lead, make decisions, stay organized, and get things done.

I'm Natalya Lucas, a high school student and founder of Teen Exec, an initiative that helps teens develop practical skills for school leadership and life.

Today, we're celebrating the first anniversary of something that started right here in my own community.

The newspaper was created after Weston had gone several years without a dedicated local newspaper.

A group of residents began exploring whether Weston could support a new local news organization, eventually leading to the creation of the nonprofit Weston News and the launch of the Westin Observer.

I'm joined by two of the journalists who produce it.

Melissa Russell, the Observer's founding and managing editor, and Chris Larabee, assistant editor.

Today we're talking about the end of their first year.

I wanted to hear what that year has actually been like, what they've learned, how they manage the work behind a weekly newspaper, and what advice they have for students interested in journalism.

Melissa, Chris, thank you so much for joining me.

Oh, it's a pleasure.

Thank you.

Happy to be here.

Of course.

So, Melissa, you were hired before there was actually a newspaper to edit.

Thank you.

When you think back to those months before the first issue, when did you have to figure out that you wouldn't have had to think about when you were joining an established newspaper?

It was an interesting situation because I'd never been faced with that before.

I'd always worked for established publications in different towns.

But the one thing that was consistent was every time I started in a new town, I had to make the rounds and introduce myself and get to know kind of the culture of the town, ask a lot of questions, find the, you know, the significant stakeholders, the people that I would be working with.

So that was pretty similar when I started, before the paper started, I, you know, met with the town administrator.

I introduced myself to the head of the dpw, the chief of police, and just kind of started to have conversations with people and just ask people, you know, tell me about Weston.

Tell me about your Weston.

Tell me about what you think people are interested in here, what kinds of stories, who are the people I should talk to?

And, yeah, always that last.

Every conversation I ended with who's the next person I person I should meet with, and who's the person who's going to give me the most trouble?

Who's the person who's going to hate me the most.

I need to have coffee with that person so that they know who I am.

So that's really the way I started here as well, is just to kind of make the rounds and shake hands.

And a lot of people didn't know that paper was in the works.

So explaining that there was a paper coming to town, people were excited about it, I think a little reticent, a little, you know, guarded maybe, but that was part of the process was, you know, looking people in the eye, shaking their hands and just showing interest.

Awesome.

And how have you seen that help you with your time in the newspaper now that you're kind of more time has been along in your newspaper journey?

Sure.

Well, this is something we talk about pretty frequently.

We spent the first year building relationships with people.

Right.

Nathan.

We met Nathan here at Weston Media.

We met everyone in the school department.

And now we can build on those relationships.

Now people know who we are.

They know why we're calling and asking them questions.

We're not calling them cold.

We're not strangers from the Boston Globe, let's say, with probing questions.

We're people everyone knows.

So now we can build on that and do stronger, more in depth work, more interesting work because we have those relationships.

And Chris, you joined shortly before the first issue came out.

So what do you remember most about those first few weeks?

Yeah, I actually joined in August, so about a month and a half before we launched the paper itself.

So it was a lot of just building up the groundwork.

I did pretty much everything Melissa did, I would say.

Met with a lot of people, kind of just figure out the vibe of the town, figure out, point people to talk to.

And then it was really about, you know, figuring out what this town is about.

It's quiet town, so it requires a little more digging than some other communities, but it's really just familiarizing myself with the town.

As for what the feeling was like, it's kind of a whirlwind.

I came from the Greenfield Recorder in Greenfield, which is the second oldest newspaper in the country.

And when we started, we were technically the newest.

So it was kind of a whiplash.

There was no institutional knowledge.

I think that was one thing that Melissa didn't mention.

When we were starting, we had nobody to rely on my old job.

We had a photographer who was there 30 years.

He's pretty much an encyclopedia at that point.

My editor was there a couple years.

There were people we could rely on in the newsroom here.

It was, you know, we were trying to build that knowledge and we came in at a busy time.

So it was a lot of work just building up all this knowledge, building up contacts and then just really spending three weeks there in September, writing our stories, researching them and getting ready to put the product out.

And another thing actually that I didn't even think to mention was we had to build the entire infrastructure.

We have no printing press, we had no people to lay out the paper, we had no physical paper.

So we had to, you know, find a printer.

We engaged someone who had worked with the Belmont Voice to create a system that we can input our stories and edit them and then send them to a printer.

All of that stuff had to be built from the ground up.

So that was a very new experience, I think, for both of us is I've been in situations where you have to learn a system, but this was actually like build a system.

So that was brand new too.

Yeah.

Was that new to you as well?

I mean, Chris had worked at an older newspaper.

Were you stationed before it somewhere that was new or.

Well, I worked for it became Gannett.

It was Gatehouse Media and they were known locally as Wicked Local.

They have, I don't even know, 75 or so local papers across the state.

It's a whole long story that anybody can Google.

But eventually they were merged with Gannett, which is USA Today.

Gannett came in and didn't really know what to do with weeklies, so eventually got rid of the weeklies.

That's a long story short.

Most of them were papers that had been around for a very long time.

So the issue of they were established and there was institutional knowledge that Chris talked about.

There was always someone who could say, well, that was something that happened five years ago or 20 years ago.

And then you'd have that background information and we really didn't have that.

We have a board that we've worked with and that we relied on.

But just in terms of learning about how old is this issue was something we had to kind of learn on the job.

And I think our early stories maybe showed we didn't have as much depth of information.

I was going to say that.

Right.

But here we are a year later and I think our work has really come a long way.

Yeah, I mean, what do you think has changed the most over the first year that you guys have seen?

I think we've just learned a lot and I think we can write stories with more depth because we have a sense of how people feel about things and how important they are.

I would say the Josiah Smith Tavern is a really good example.

The story of, you know, of them wanting to build, bring in a restaurant has been going on for what, 20 years.

And we came in and just said, oh, they're putting in a restaurant, that's great.

But we didn't know how long it had been going on and how people were frustrated.

So all that came, you know, came with time.

Same thing with like the select board expansion.

That was a, I think it was 20, 21.

That effort first started.

We put out a very bare bones story when the governor signed legislation that required the town to hold a special election to make this move.

And we got a little blowback from there because we didn't, we didn't know the whole story at that point.

Just here's all the information.

It was kind of atoning for what we had missed.

And then it helped us inform our coverage in the future because then you can kind of piece together why these things are happening and just get that new information in there and get as much background in as succinctly as possible.

Yeah, I think a lot of our early stories were a demonstration of us learning in real time.

You know, you don't usually see the reporter do the research work on the page, but that's what they were.

It was learn about something, write about something and you know, now we can build on that knowledge.

You guys talk about some difficulties that you face.

Is there anything that's become more routine for you guys now that you, you've had this first year under your belt?

I would say when we first started, you know, I and Chris will probably be able to talk about this more that I was like pacing, pacing, pacing the office right before the first edition came out and you know, just really worried about it and stressing about it and just thinking like, I just want this to become routine.

I just can't wait until we know what we're doing.

And this is a routine.

And that happened, I think relatively quickly, but now it's a lot more comfortable.

We know how much time we need, how big things need to be, how many words in a story.

We have a better sense of what we're working with.

So that took a little bit of time.

Yeah, I think the routine kicked in maybe February, ish, maybe right after the new year.

I think we needed those first four months there at the end of the year, and then kind of the reset after the holidays to really get into the routines.

We were coming in, as I mentioned before, the MBTA Communities act, that was a special town meeting in October, so we had to hit the ground running hard.

And then it rolled right into the special election for the Select Board.

So we're dealing with a lot of big issues that we didn't really have our hands around.

Well, I'd say we had our hands around MBTA more than Select Board, but we had to hit the ground running.

There wasn't always a lot of time to, you know, step back and think.

And I think after the New year, we were kind of settled into the more normal routine of the town.

You know, they're building the budget in January, the school is presenting their budget in January.

I think we just got more into a rhythm with the town by that point.

Right.

And now that we've done it a year, we've been through all the cycles once, we've been through all the seasons, so we have a sense of, okay, so now we know what's important.

We know where our focus needs to be.

And you've talked a bit about what you guys decide to write about.

How did you.

How do you decide what becomes the news that you choose to write about and that goes and published into your newspaper?

There's a very basic answer.

You know, anything the Select Board does, we just analyze it.

And is this important to people?

You know, not everything that happens in a meeting is newsworthy.

So it's really a judgment call on things.

And I don't find it a difficult judgment call on a lot of things.

You kind of just know instinctually, like, what's an important story?

You know, anything to do with the Josiah Smith Tavern.

We know that's a story.

Anything money related, anything budget related.

We know that there's tremendous interest in schools, even with folks who don't have kids in schools, because it's such a major part of the town budget and the town identity.

And I think also, you know, in a town, Weston's interesting, I think, for both of us, because it's not a particularly newsy town.

There's not a lot of things that are happening dramatically at any specific time.

But.

But there's a lot of things that.

That require digging and analysis.

And that's where we've put a lot of our attention.

I think the baseline is you just have to ask yourself, is this of interest to people, especially if it's not related to the function of the government.

We're Going to start working on some more, I think, traffic stories.

We have already covered to death, Route 30, and we're going to keep covering that project, but going to take a look at some of the other intersections in town, because not everybody's going to care about what happens in a select board, but if they live near the intersection of Route 20 and Highland street, they're going to be really concerned about if any changes are made or they're going to be relieved that they're considering changes.

You know, it's just looking at things that are impacting everybody's lives.

Everybody has their own interests, too.

So that's also part of the kind of judgment is, is this going to be interesting to a lot of people?

Is this going to touch an audience that we haven't touched in the past?

Those sorts of questions we kind of have to ask.

And we want to make sure if we can't do it with every issue, do it with most issues, that we're, you know, having a broad brush.

So we'll have a school story, a town story, a feature story, you know, to try to.

Like Chris said, you know, somebody's going to find interest in this.

Not everybody's going to be interested in the select board, but they might enjoy reading about, you know, a local author or a student who did something really interesting.

So just trying to remember that it's a community paper and try to represent all the different constituencies in a town.

Yeah.

How do you keep track of all of your news stories that you have to write?

Chris does more of the writing than I do at this point.

And Addison, who's unfortunately not with us today, but for me, I have a million Excel sheets tracking anybody who sent a letter to the editor.

I have that in.

Anybody who's written a column, I have that in a sheet.

So I can keep track of it.

I monitor.

Do we have enough town stories week to week?

Do we have enough school stories week to week?

So we just want to make sure we can't have an all sports edition, unless that was something that was going on.

But we want to make sure we're representing all the different groups.

I map everything out week to week, and just.

We're short.

We don't have an art story.

Is there something we can have for an art story this week?

So that's kind of.

My hidden talent is just keeping track of things.

Yeah, that's a great overall look.

And, Chris, what about you for when you write your.

When you write your stories?

How do you plan those out?

How do you keep track of interviews.

Honestly, there's no really super secret.

It's just being not even super organized, just somewhat organized.

I keep my.

If I'm doing interviews on the phone, I'm typing my notes in my computer.

They're all my interviews for one story are in one note file.

If I'm interviewing somebody in person, it's in my notebook, which I always keep with me.

There's really no like super secret.

It's just, you know, keeping track of things.

I think everybody has their own different method.

I think I'm a little bit more of a loose organizer than some people are.

But it's really just keeping track of things, keeping, you know, just being ready for things that might pop up and budgeting your time correctly.

You don't want to.

If you're writing a long story, you don't want to something to pop up and kind of take away your focus from that story.

So setting aside an hour or two a day to.

To work on a bigger story is a big part of it.

While you kind of juggle.

Maybe I'm waiting for a school committee meeting on a Monday night.

I know there's gonna be a little bit less work to do on that Monday, so I have time to maybe work for a few hours on a longer story while I wait for that meeting to start.

Yeah.

How quick is the turnaround time for you guys?

Depends, you know, if you're writing a community event preview like I'm doing did with, or like we're going to have in our paper for the Rotary club car show, It's a pretty quick turnaround.

You don't have to go super in depth on that.

You just want to let people know what's happening, a little bit of history on it, why they should go.

That's a 15, 20, 30 minute interview, depending on how long you want to talk to somebody.

And then you can honestly write the story in that same amount of time.

Maybe 30 minutes takes a little bit longer.

Right.

But something like that's quick.

Something like working on the crash data at the intersection of Route 20 and Highland Street.

That's.

I talked to the chair of the traffic and sidewalk committee for an hour the other day.

And then I have to go through a probably 150 page report.

I don't have to read the whole report, but just this.

The segments that matter.

That research takes time.

So, you know, it varies depending on the story.

I know that's not the most interesting answer because it's a basic one, but it can range anywhere from an hour for a quick Turnaround story to several hours on a well researched piece to Addison's Flock camera story, which is running in this week's edition.

That took several weeks of work.

Not always focusing on it because we have other responsibilities and Addison as other stories are.

Right.

But that was many days and many hours of, you know, talking to the police department, gathering these contracts, getting all this data and getting all that information.

So, again, it boils down just what's the.

What is the story?

And then going from there.

Yeah.

It seems like you just have to adjust and go from there.

Yeah.

How do you guys.

How.

What happens when things change?

How do you best react to change in schedules or change in.

When people can do interviews?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, Weston isn't necessarily like a breaking news kind of town where you have to drop everything and run, you know, to cover a story for good or bad.

Chris has a lot of experience working on a daily.

I'm very happy that we are not a daily newspaper and that I don't have to sit there and listen to the scanner all day and go out to a crash, stand there for 25 minutes while I wait for a cop to talk to me who might not give me all the information I need and then go back and write that.

So, yeah, it.

When you work on a daily and it translates here, you just gotta be flexible.

You have to be ready to change on a dime.

I will say it's like Melissa was saying, it's not as much here.

It's more working around other people's schedules at this point.

Right.

And things do change because you can have, you know, a zoom call lined up and then that person doesn't show up or, you know, has to reschedule.

So, yeah, being.

Being flexible and having other things ready to go, I think has served us really well.

It's.

It's a very common situation where a story will fall through for the week you were hoping to run it.

So.

So, okay, what else do we have?

What can we move up in the schedule?

So that's.

Yeah, just being.

Assuming that's gonna happen is the best way to go.

And I'd like each of you to think back over the full year.

Is there a story you worked on or experience that you had that taught you something you didn't know when the Observers first off started?

I think so many stories taught us things we didn't know because we really had to learn on the job.

Um, yeah, I would say, I guess the Tavern is.

Is maybe the.

The gift that keeps giving, and that's.

A unique situation for out of, you know, a lot of things in municipal government and covering the school committee, you find that a lot of the issues are the same.

It's money, budget, salaries, that sort of thing.

With the tavern, that's a very unique situation.

It's a town owned building with a historic preservation restriction not held by the town, but held by historic New England with a non profit that's going to be subleasing.

This non profit is leasing from the town this building they're going to sublease to a business owner.

That's a very, very different setup than anything I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah, many, many different points.

Yeah.

You know, to, to become educated about.

And so many different players and so many different agendas.

So I think, I think that one.

It took us a little while to feel kind of confident about reporting on that story.

But I think journalism's journalism, everybody has their own kind of way they do things, their own spin on things.

But at the end of the day, you're going to be at the town hall.

A lot of these things, it's more just self improvement at this point.

You want to get better, you want to be a better writer, you want to be a better journalist.

And that might not be necessarily learning entirely new concepts and new things.

I think it's more learning about maybe here's a better way to do this, that sort of thing.

And what's the best way to tell this story?

You know, we have, we're lucky to, you know, we're very fortunate that we're producing a print product, but we also have our digital product.

So sometimes the best way to tell a story is with a video or you know, with a different, you know, means to do it.

So now that we're a year in, we can start experimenting a little more, I think.

So I want to turn to students for the last part of our conversation.

So some teenagers listening may already write for a school newspaper and others may be interested in journalism but haven't tried it yet.

If you were talking to someone my age who wanted to become a better journalist, what's one skill you'd like them to start developing?

Now the first thing that came to mind, first two things that came to mind, Curiosity, very important and good listening skills.

I would put at those before writing skills.

Cause you can develop your writing and there is a technique to learn to become a journalist.

But the first thing is to be willing to ask a lot of questions and to be a learner and to be curious about how things work and Ask what is behind the thing that I'm curious about.

So I would call those Skill 1 and Skill 2.

Learn how to listen without feeling the need to interject and to be patient and to let silences happen and to see what people are doing in those silences.

Those are all good skills to develop when you're beginning to think about if you want to get into journalism and.

Then on top, those are obviously the main things.

But if you want to talk a little bit about writing, just, you know, don't be afraid to question your own work.

Remember that you're a storyteller, but don't get too flowery with it.

It better start basic and build up from there because the reader has to understand what you're saying.

And if you try and jam too many things into a sentence, as I often do, you can get lost in it.

Yeah.

Was there anything that you guys did when you were younger that helped you along your way or any opportunities you saw that were available?

I'll be honest.

I went to college originally as a chemistry major and then shifted into journalism.

So I really didn't do a lot of writing in high school or any of those sort of extracurricular activities because I was focused on science.

And I kind of just learned it on the fly a little bit in college.

What made you make the switch?

I was panicking after a couple of bombed exams, freshman year, first semester, and I was sitting, I'm panicking, like, what am I gonna do?

Like, do I belong here?

Like, I know I can't continue doing chemistry.

And at the time I was just kind of thinking, I think back to when I was a kid.

I always up early for some reason, and what do people do when they get up at 6?

They throw on the morning news.

So I always had the news on in my house and loved the Today show as a kid.

So always had that.

Even though that's not like super hardcore journalism, it still is in a way.

And I'm big sports fan.

So I was like, I didn't do sports journalism.

So I did a lot of that in college.

I worked at the Daily Free Press at Boston University, the student run newspaper there.

I was a sports editor.

And then Covid happened.

There were no more sports to write about.

So I just joined the campus and city news desk for a semester my senior year.

And all my assignments were all based on, like, in classes were, you know, not sports related.

So I already had those skills.

And then out of college, like, right after graduating, I was looking for a job.

So I applied to Greenfield at a daily newspaper and figured I'd just, you know, kind of be a jack of all trades.

So certainly maybe a unique path into journalism, but I'm glad I did it.

Yeah, that's a great story.

And, Melissa, what about you?

How did you get into journalism yourself?

Okay, well, so similar.

I was majoring in something in the sciences, was not doing well, and, you know, eventually became an English major, which was what I most enjoyed, and wrote for my college paper, became an editor there, and then graduated.

And, you know, my dad was basically like, get a job.

And I did.

The local paper was hiring, and I gave them my college work.

They hired me, and I just started on that path.

And I would say, I've told Chris this before.

I think my first editor was kind of from the tough old broad school of journalism.

I was not a journalism student, so I kind of had to learn on the job just basically how to write in that style.

And she would physically rip up everything I wrote and threw it at me.

And that's how I learned to be a journalist was just basically through you know, sheer terror and humiliation.

So I don't recommend that necessarily.

I would be very pleased to work with any student who thinks they might be interested.

I promise I. I will be kinder and more compassionate.

But I'll tell you that those lessons stuck and, yeah, just.

Just stuck with effort and then wound up doing other things for a long time and, you know, went back to it because it's like it is.

Once you get the.

The training, it is something you can get back into because, you know, it kind of works the same way.

So still learning all the time.

And this is a job where you.

You'll always be learning and you'll always be trying to improve.

You can always be better.

And yeah, it's.

It's that kind of a job where when you get it right, it's delightful and thrilling.

When you get it wrong, boy, do people let you know.

And I guess that that's the kind of thing I like.

Do you think there's something students tend to underestimate about being a good journalist or getting into the field?

I think it's a tough field, and I can't emphasize enough that it's kind of a heartbreaking field, frankly, because you do put your passion into something, and sometimes the company doesn't want you or doesn't like what you're doing, or they cancel your paper or, you know, a lot of things can happen.

So I would say build skills.

They can be applied in a lot of different Places.

There's a lot.

There's lots of ways to do journalism.

And I know when I started, I thought I was a pretty terrific journalist and writer, and over time, kind of had to have that slapped out of me a little bit and become willing to learn.

So I think being a little humble, understanding that you will grow and you will improve if you allow for that, is really the way to think about it, to always consider yourself a learner and kind of always think of yourself maybe as a beginner, because you're going to be learning your whole career, just.

Sticking with the journalist end of things.

And we can talk about being a better interviewer, too, because I think that's important.

I think you have to have a thick skin a little bit.

Your work's out there in the public, and not everybody's gonna be happy with it, and that's just a part of the job.

And sometimes it's your fault.

Somebody's.

Sometimes somebody else's fault, but you just have to kind of have that sort of toughness.

It can be difficult.

I certainly struggle with it.

Your name is on everything.

People know who you are, and there are.

Trust me, there are plenty of people who are not afraid to call you or email you, and sometimes they're not very nice about it.

Not in Weston, though.

Everybody's.

Yeah, everybody's great in Weston.

Knock on wood.

That is a. I think that's one thing that maybe isn't always taught.

I don't feel like I was ever.

You weren't prepared.

Yeah.

Sometimes people are just going to be mean, and it's.

I hate to say that, but that's just what it is.

Is there something that's helped you cope with that or help you through maybe a situation that you didn't expect?

Honestly, sometimes just stepping away from the computer or on your phone, I will admit I am not always the best with it.

My name's attached to it.

I take great pride in what I do, and when I make a mistake and I get really hard on myself.

So it's just.

It's about personal coping skills, and sometimes you just have to work through it and power through.

I don't have a great answer for it because I still struggle with it.

Right.

And knowing yourself is really important and having support that you're not.

You're not writing your own newspaper all by yourself.

You have an editor, you have colleagues.

Everybody's experienced everything that you're experiencing.

So it's really important to have people around that you can lean on and ask a lot of questions.

How did you deal with this to pay attention when you're working with other people to see how they're managing a difficult situation?

Maybe that's something you can learn from.

I know I learned a lot just from listening to other people talk on the phone.

You know, they asked, oh, I like the way they phrase that question.

Or I like the way they're responding to this difficult person.

And I think those are lessons really, for anything you're going to be doing is just lean on the people who are there to support you and don't feel like this is only happening to you.

It's happening to everybody.

Yeah.

You can always see those around you who are in the same position as you are, and they are great resources to help you.

Absolutely.

Kind of switching gears, we talked a bit about interviewing.

So what advice would you give a teenager or teenage reporter about becoming a better and more confident interviewer?

I'm going to use a cliche, but I don't think the cliche is actually correct.

There's no such thing as a stupid question.

But sometimes there is.

But I think the essence is keep your questions basic.

When you're talking to an expert or even just a person, Town, government.

If you keep it basic, people are more than happy to walk you through the steps.

And don't be afraid if you don't understand something.

Just, hey, I just want to go back to this.

I want to double check this.

Our job's to get things right.

We're not experts on everything.

Even though we say we want to be an expert on everything, don't be afraid to follow up with it.

Just, hey, I don't understand this.

Or shoot them an email a day later when you're writing the story.

Keep your questions basic.

I think that's where you can get the most information from people.

There's room to ask those really long questions that are like two sentences long or, you know, just a lot of clauses thrown in.

But you want to keep it basic because you don't want the person you're interviewing to get lost in your question.

And you can ask more questions that way if you keep it short and let them talk, too.

I think Melissa already said it.

Those moments of silence, let somebody talk when you ask them a question.

Especially if you're doing like a feature story or something along those lines.

Ask your question, let them talk, and don't jump right into your next question.

Let it sit for a moment.

They might come up with something else in that.

That line of thinking.

And Melissa, what about you?

Is there anything that you Would add on.

I think this is, you know, it goes kind of back to the beginning of showing interest.

If you ask people questions about themselves, they're thrilled, and they love to talk about themselves for the most part.

So being interested, asking questions that you're legitimately wanting to find out the answer, you know, And a question for a high school student, a great question is, when you were my age, what did you want to know about this?

Or, you know, how did you get interested in this?

How would somebody my age get into, you know, to kind of use that as your super strength?

People love to talk to students about what they do, so, yeah, really, really mine that.

And again, like, practice listening because it's really, really hard to pay attention because you're already thinking of your next question that you want to ask.

The other thing I would suggest is be super prepared.

You know, know everything you can know about your subject.

Have a list of questions you want to ask, and then don't be afraid to kind of put those aside if the conversation warrants or it goes in a different direction.

But, you know, being prepared will help you ask better questions.

Yeah, you don't want to stumble into an interview.

I know.

I've done that several times.

And you just.

You hang up the phone and you're just like, man, what am I doing?

I interviewed an author, and I. I didn't know anything about them or what their books were, and that was a big, dumb embarrassment.

I shouldn't have done that.

Anything else you guys would like to add before we wrap up with our final question?

Well, again, any student who is interested in talking about contributing to the observer, shoot me an [email protected] and we can talk about that.

But I know, contribute to your school paper.

If you don't have paper, start a paper.

And we're happy to be a resource, resource for anybody who's interested, even if.

You don't want to contribute.

If you just have a question, feel free to ask us.

We're happy to answer it.

So before we finish, I have one question that isn't about journalism.

So you spend a lot of your week thinking about deadlines and what's happening around Weston.

What do each of you do when you're not working that helps you think about the next story and recharge?

I like to take my dog for walks.

I was going to say my dog.

Yeah, that's a great way to kind of stop thinking about it, you know?

And again, I. I don't think it's anything super like secret Sauce worthy.

I just try to not look at my email, even though I tend to look at it all the time.

You know, crack open a book, get lost in it.

Honestly, it's still journalism, but I like to read New York Times.

If I see an interesting story come across my social media feed, I might not be thinking about Weston or my job or maybe something super related to my job personally, but I just like to read about these kind of slices of life and sometimes maybe pick up a skill or a thought that I didn't think about.

I know that's still maybe a little bit of work, but you try to tie your personal growth into your work.

I think that's how you get a little bit better at it.

Right.

And then, you know, watch TV and movies.

Nothing super crazy.

I'm a pretty simple guy.

Yeah.

I would say, you know, family time is really important.

Getting, you know, exercise and just being a person, living in the world.

Express interest, broaden your mind, get involved in the arts, see a good movie, enjoy a good meal.

All of that feeds into everything that makes us good journalists.

I think living life makes us good journalists.

Well, Melissa and Chris, thank you so much for joining me and congratulations on the Weston Observer's first anniversary.

Thank you.

And I did want to invite anybody who is interested to check out our podcast, also above the fold.

We do a monthly podcast.

We're interviewing interesting people in town, and you can find that at the Weston Media podcast site.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, in personally reflecting on the conversation, one thing I kept thinking about is how much of getting better at something comes from simply doing it over and over again.

When the observer started, Melissa and Chris were learning about Weston while also trying to report on it a year later.

They've been through the meetings, budgets, elections, deadlines, and unexpected changes once, and they have all of that experience to draw on.

I think that applies to students, too.

We sometimes expect ourselves to know how to lead a meeting, interview someone, manage a project, or make a difficult decision the first time we have to do it.

But a lot of those skills come from experience.

Trying something, seeing what works, adjusting, and being a little better prepared the next time.

I've also been fortunate to write as a columnist for the Western observer for the past several months.

And it's also given me a small window into what goes into creating a newspaper.

When I submit a column, I'm most thinking about my own 500 or 600 words.

This conversation reminded me that my column is just one small piece of something much bigger.

Reporting, interviews, editing decisions about what to cover deadlines, and putting an entire newspaper together every week.

It's also made me appreciate having a place where students can contribute to a community conversation.

Writing a column has pushed me to pay closer attention to what students are experiencing, figure out what I actually like to think about, and then try to say something that might be useful for someone else.

That's been a really valuable experience for me.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Teen Exec podcast.

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You can also visit Teen Exec for more ideas and resources about organization, decision making, leadership, and the skills students use every day.