Editing
My approach to editing
Knowing my first time editing an article was going to be as the editor-in-chief, I spent the summer learning AP style and practicing on old Wingspan articles. I’d look for content errors, phrases I could shorten and grammar mistakes.
When the school year started, I could see the improvement in our work firsthand. That growth was validated when Wingspan won Best of Show at the Missouri Interscholastic Journalism Association last year. I knew my approach worked but I didn’t know how to best describe it to future copy editors.
Last summer at Cherubs, the Medill Northwestern Journalism Institute, we put together an entire program website in two days. During that process I was a coordinator for the campus section, which meant I led the topic discussion and worked with our section editor Ben Shapiro, the 2024 Pennsylvania Student Journalist of the Year and national runner-up. He told me about the “ABCs of journalism:” Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. He gave me the language to describe what I’d been doing when I edit.
I’ve applied that language to build a larger and stronger team of copy editors who increase accuracy, ensure brevity and maximize clarity. It is part of the legacy I’m leaving with future Wingspan teams.
Copy editing
To ensure future leaders wouldn’t face the same editing scare I did, I expanded our copy editing team. I identified our five strongest reporters and gave them a practice story to edit. Then, I provided detailed feedback on what they did well and where they could improve. This gave us a foundation to build on when editing our winter issue. It spread the workload out, improved skills and was more effective. We’ve decided to maintain a larger editing team for future issues.
Editing packets
Editing packet of the Wingspan spring edition from 2025, which went on to win Second Place Best of Show ranking at the National Scholastic Press Association.
Wingspan has a love-hate relationship with editing packets. A week before we send it to the printers, we print off a black and white copy of the spreads for everyone. In two days everyone edits their copy and delivers it to me. I review their edits and combine them with mine. During the final week, I use the editing packets to conduct a final revision of the pages. While editing packets can be tiresome, it's one of the first chances for everyone to see each other's work, adding to the excitement of those last few days. My team also tends to write jokes in their editing packets for me to see because the last two weeks of an issue are difficult.
Our writing cycle
Creating a magazine requires organization. Every issue, I create a week by week schedule that becomes the plan we live by.
Week one: Plan the issue
We spend two to three days on story topics, story assignments, page counts and deciding deadline dates. The last two days are spent assigning copy editors, organizing the pages and deciding any other deadline, surveys, ads or extra steps. I’d call this stage the imaginary point because I’m constantly imagining how the edition will come out.
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Weeks two and three: First story deadline
While spending two weeks on a story might feel long, Wingspan aims for in-depth pieces that take longer to report. The first week and a half are spent getting interviews while the last two days are for writing the article. I always push the message that a good article can be mediocrely written as long as the reporting is amazing but it doesn’t go vice-versa.
Wingspan plans an edition of their magazine.
Week four: First design deadline
With half the stories and photos done, designers begin designing the magazine. The second deadline stories are also started. At this point, the leaders and I have spotted what is falling behind. So, we divide, conquer and jump in. Overall, this week the spreads tend to change the most.
Week five: Second story deadline
This week all stories should be done. It’s a celebratory week but also stressful with last minute interviews and late nights writing. However, we end up with amazing stories and only a few more pages to design.
A rough draft of the page outline of Wingspan's spring edition for 2026.
Week six: All pages done
This week is crunch week for designers. Since we can only access the server with the computers at school, this week we lock in. Reporters coordinate on website stories while editors and designers are finalizing everything before we print off editing packets. The week ends with all editing packets being delivered to me.
Week seven: Send to printers
This is the scariest and most fun week for me. I spend two days straight editing the 30-page magazine over and over again. On Monday, I start on the first page and go through the whole edition along with my editing packet. Tuesday, I start in the back and go through it again. Finally, that Wednesday, I go through it one more time starting in the middle. I start in a different spot every time to change up my routine because it helps me spot more mistakes. I basically live in the journalism room during send off week.
An article I've edited
ICE in 417
Local protests and organizations give insight into ICE’s involvement in Greene County
STORY BY: Martin Schmalzbauer
PHOTO EDITOR
Photo used in the last summer Wingspan for a story about immigration. The ICE story photo is still in development.
This article about ICE in Greene County is a sneak peak at Wingspan’s Volume 13, Issue 3 that will be released around the end of February.
The article will go through a few more changes before being published but it’ll look similar to this. The main things I changed while editing the article were:
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Clarifying information: Some quotes were hard to understand, so I paraphrased them. I also moved around the order of information to get to the newsworthy part of the story quicker.
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Condensing: If something can be said with less words, I change it. This story was over the maximum word count by 100 words, so I was looking for places that could be more brief.
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Cleaning up the flow: To make an article clearer, I always look for quotes that don’t need to be quotes like Nicole Ambar De Santos’s saying she’s the Outreach Director of Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance. Instead, I put that information in a transition.
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Fix grammar: This article was written quickly because there were a lot of interviews that went into it, which took up most of the reporter’s time, so I knew I’d need to look out for grammar mistakes.
Original copy
With Immigration Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) presence becoming ever so apparent on the national scale, local ties to ICE can be hard to directly pinpoint.
Greene County is one of the only three counties in the state of Missouri to house ICE detainees in prisons. In response local organizations have begun to emerge to address the influx of ICE in the area.
“I am the Outreach Director at (SMIA), the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance, [which] was founded in July of last year,” Nicole Ambar de Santos said.
According to SMIA website they are focused on provide justice for immigrants across missouri
According to SMIA is focused on providing immigrant justice
“Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance (SMIA) is dedicated to advancing immigrant justice across Missouri by raising public awareness, dismantling harmful policies, and offering direct support to immigrant communities. Our initial campaign was focused on ending the ICE contract at the Greene County Jail through organizing and advocacy, but our work extends beyond this single issue. SMIA seeks to strengthen rapid response networks, expand access to legal and language resources, build leadership within communities, and lay the groundwork for policy reform within the state that promotes dignity, safety, and belonging for all immigrants.
The Greene County Sheriff's office has allotted 25% of their beds for detainees through an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.
“Missouri, technically, we're not allowed to have [Detention Centers], but they can refer them to … Greene County jail, or the proper authorities,” Ambar de Santos said.
Sheriff Jim Arnott of Greene County was contacted on January 14th but failed to respond to a request for an interview. According to an interview with Ozarks Firsts, Arnott said that he has no plans to lapse the contract following heightened tensions in Minnesota.
Ambar de Santos said that the financial interest involved in holding detainees has raised some concerns.
“The per diem rate is $100 which means per night, per person that's in the Greene County Jail, they'll be paying $100 for that person…” Ambar de Santos said. “375 to 250 [of the beds], will be used for males.125 will be used for females, and there's none for juveniles. However, this also raises questions about how they are targeting people that has seemed to be a big issue.”
SMIA was one of three organizations to participate in a march on the 8th of January following the death of Minnesotan Renee Nicole Good.
Pedro Rodriguez, who was one of the roughly 150 protesters in attendance, said that as a first generation American he’s seen the fear of deportations affect his community.
“I'm not originally from Missouri,” Rodriguez said.“I'm from Texas, and especially down there with a lot of Mexican immigrants, ICE is a little scary, and the idea of being deported is a big fear for a lot of people.”
Rodriguez said he has dealt with difficult conversations surrounding ICE coming from someone who works in the medical field.
“It's scary, because, being a kid of an immigrant, there are so many resources that I could be using instead that would benefit me. For example, we talked about how SNAP benefits are being lost for millions of Americans across the country, or health care being lost for a lot of people. We were scared for a while at the hospital that a lot of our patients were going to lose their Medicaid funding. It was really scary, and it's really just disheartening seeing that a lot of our funding for our country is going less towards the people who need it and more towards getting people out of here who are just looking for a home or looking for safety,”
SMIA helps source information regarding detention status through the use of partners like Abide in Love.
“We work with a local organization in Springfield called Abide in Love, and what they've been doing is that from the public jail tracker by the Greene County Jail, they've been getting all of that person data.”
The Rev. Silas Engstrom is the Vice President of Abide in Love Springfield, a community oriented volunteer group.
“Abide in Love is a group of local volunteers that began in Phelps County,” Rev Engsrom said. “We seek to provide support for individuals detained by ICE. We have a group of volunteer ‘Penpals’ that text with detainees and put funds in their account so that they can contact us or their family. Through listening to their stories we may learn of other ways to assist such as: providing funds for the video call app, supporting their commissary, or connecting them with other resources. We also have a small, but growing, group of local clergy and interpreters that visit the jail to provide emotional and spiritual support.”
Through the help of volunteers Abide in Love is able to track detainees.
“We maintain a spreadsheet that gathers public record information about detainees that includes the date of entry and length of stay,” Engstrom said. “This information also helps track the number of people currently detained as well as demographic data. From this information, we try to assign Penpals to as many of them as possible in order to make connections and find out about their needs.”
Engstrom said that the goal of Abide in Love is to provide care to immigrants in detention facing hardships
“Abide in Love is about connection and support,” Engstrom said. “We provide conversation partners that respect the dignity of the individual and let people—who are in an extremely isolating situation—know that there are people who care. Connection is the goal. We are often able to help detainees connect with their family, legal assistance, and material resources. This is a humanitarian effort.”
Engstrom said that response from the community has been appreciative.
“We have received a lot of support and positive feedback from the community,” Engstrom said. “I think people are becoming aware of the difficult circumstances that these individuals are facing and generally people just want to help.”
Although ICE apprehensions are where a majority of detainees come from, Governor Mike Kehoe has signed an 287g agreement to allow Missouri State Highway patrol to perform arrests.
After edits copy
With Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) presence becoming increasingly visible nationwide, local ties to ICE can be difficult to pinpoint.
Greene County is one of only three counties in the state of Missouri to house ICE detainees in local jails. In response, local organizations have begun to emerge to address ICE‘s growing presence in the area.
The Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance (SMIA) is a grassroots coalition focused on immigrant justice across the state.
“[SMIA] is dedicated to advancing immigrant justice across Missouri by raising public awareness, dismantling harmful policies and offering direct support to immigrant communities,” the organization states on their website.
The group’s initial campaign was focused on ending the ICE contract at the Greene County Jail but has since expanded.
The Greene County Sheriff's office has allotted 25 percent of its jail beds for detainees through an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.
“Missouri is technically not allowed to have [detention centers], but they can refer detainees to Greene County Jail, or the proper authorities,” Nicole Ambar De Santos, outreach director for SMIA, said.
Sheriff Jim Arnott of Greene County was contacted on Jan. 14 but did not respond to a request for an interview. According to a previous interview with OzarksFirsts, Arnott said that he has no plans to lapse the contract despite heightened tensions in Minnesota.
Santos said the financial interest involved in holding detainees has raised concerns.
“The per diem rate is $100, which means the county is paid $100 per night for each detainee held in the Greene County Jail,” Santos said. “Three-hundred-sevendy-five to 250 [of the beds], will be used for males, 125 will be used for females and there's none for juveniles. However, this also raises questions about how they are targeting people.”
SMIA was one of three organizations that participated in a march Jan. 8 following the death of Minnesota resident Renee Nicole Good.
Pedro Rodriguez, one of roughly 150 protesters in attendance, said as a first generation American he’s seen the fear of deportations affect his community.
“I'm not originally from Missouri,” Rodriguez said.“I'm from Texas, and especially down there with a lot of Mexican immigrants, ICE is scary, and the idea of being deported is a big fear for a lot of people.”
Rodriguez said he has had difficult conversations about ICE through his work in the medical field.
“We were scared, for a while, at the hospital that a lot of our patients were going to lose their Medicaid funding,” Rodriguez said. “It's really disheartening seeing that a lot of our funding for our country is going less towards the people who need it and more towards getting people out of here who are just looking for a home or safety.”
SMIA works with partner organizations, like Abide in Love, to track detainees’ status.
“What they've [Abide in Love’s] been doing is that from the public jail tracker by the Greene County Jail, they've been getting all of that personal data,” Santos said.
The Rev. Silas Engstrom is the Vice President of Abide in Love Springfield, a community-oriented volunteer group.
“Abide in Love is a group of local volunteers that began in Phelps County,” Engstrom said. “We seek to provide support for individuals detained by ICE. We have a group of volunteer ‘Penpals’ that text with detainees and put funds in their account so that they can contact us or their family. Through listening to their stories we may learn of other ways to assist such as: providing funds for the video call app, supporting their commissary or connecting them with other resources. We also have a small, but growing, group of local clergy and interpreters that visit the jail to provide emotional and spiritual support.”
Through volunteer efforts, Abide in Love is able to track detainees.
“We maintain a spreadsheet that gathers public record information about detainees that includes the date of entry and length of stay,” Engstrom said. “This information also helps track the number of people currently detained as well as demographic data. From this information, we try to assign Penpals to as many of them as possible in order to make connections and find out about their needs.”
Engstrom said the goal of Abide in Love is to provide care to immigrants facing hardships in detention.
“Abide in Love is about connection and support,” Engstrom said. “We provide conversation partners that respect the dignity of the individual and let people — who are in an extremely isolating situation — know that there are people who care. Connection is the goal. We are often able to help detainees connect with their family, legal assistance and material resources. This is a humanitarian effort.”
Engstrom said the support from the community has been appreciative.
“We have received a lot of support and positive feedback from the community,” Engstrom said. “I think people are becoming aware of the difficult circumstances that these individuals are facing and generally people just want to help.”
Although ICE apprehensions are where a majority of detainees come from, Gov.Mike Kehoe has signed an 287(g) agreement allowing the Missouri State Highway Patrol to assist with immigration arrests.