A Message from the Media Team

Another successful year has gone by since a new group of students from the senior school have stepped up to become leading Media Team members. Throughout the course of the last year, the Media Team has worked tirelessly and ceaselessly, writing articles, taking pictures, and updating the school website so that the latest news and information about our school can reach audiences within and outside our school. During the 2015-2016 academic year, 72 front page news articles have been published and over 3000 photographs have been taken by our photographers. It’s clear that we are still, as ESF’s CEO Mrs. Belinda Greer puts it, “[…] Leading the way for ESF.”

A new year has arrived and it’s time for some new changes to be made. We are exhilarated to introduce the new cohort of students who will be driving our team forward. This year our core team consists of a more diverse range of students from different year groups to facilitate more effective communication between our members. Replacing Henry Lui and Pallas Yiu as Editors-in-chief are Laurel Lee and Jennifer Yu.

Laurel has been part of the Media Team as a journalist since its debut in 2014, has written and edited numerous articles, and is accustomed to the inner workings of the team. She is also a member of the team for Sha Tin College’s annual literary and art publication VOiCE, and feels extremely privileged to be given the role of Editor-in-Chief.

Jennifer is currently the Editor-in-Chief of VOiCE, Sha Tin College’s annual literary and art publication, and was previously a journalist of the Media Team. She has familiarised herself with the artistry of journalism as a journalist of the Sir TL Yang Ambassador Outreach website and diligently working alongside the Ambassador Team in the website’s creation. Jennifer has high hopes for the Media Team in its coming year.

Replacing Elena Jim as Lead Journalist is Martha Chow.

Martha has contributed enthusiastically towards writing for the school website since 2015 and specialises in the coverage of events in the world of debate (To be honest, she just strays away from writing about sport in the hopes of not humiliating herself or others). Through attending training seminars, writing for the SCMP, and frequently reading off other news outlets, she has honed her journalistic abilities and learned that the key to a strong article is an attractive lead paragraph and a bit of personality. She is delighted to serve as Lead Journalist and looks forward to another fruitful year for the team. She also hopes that she won’t forget to use the Oxford comma.

Taking over as Lead Photographer is Alyanna Payos.

Alyanna is the newest addition to the team, having only officially joined in 2016 as a photographer. However, her passion for photography, desire to capture the many great moments of student life, and her beloved iPhone 4 (just kidding, she has a DSLR on hand), enables her to fulfill her newly obtained role. She is also a member of The VOiCE’s art editorial team. Alyanna is thrilled to be the new Lead Photographer, and is anticipating a successful year with the team.

Our new Lead Copy-Editors are Clement O’Young and Leeann Tong.

Clement is a dedicated member of the media team, despite only having been a part of the team for approximately a year. His contributions have shown his commitment to his superiors and led to him being chosen as one of the 3 students to sent to work at SCMP during the summer, where he has honed his editing and writing skills. Despite his rather limited experience , Clement strives to improve the quality of the work the media team will be putting out in the future; he will be working ceaselessly over the course of the next year to ensure that all articles published have been polished to a high standard.

Leeann has been part of the media team since her entry in 2015, and has seen and edited her fair share of articles during this period of time. Having had experience writing for VOiCE (Sha Tin College’s literary and art publication) in addition to editing several different forms of literature for aspiring writers and poets alike, Leeann is well equipped-both to oversee and guide the journalists of the media team in their work, and to update and edit the school website. She is looking forward to working with the new team, and is pleased to note that her puns and jokes are accepted-if not appreciated-with good humour.

We would like to sincerely thank the hardworking staff who have worked to shape the Media Team into the professional platform it is today, especially Mr Farrow and Mr Thornton, who have consistently supported the media team in their work. Henry Lui and Pallas Yiu (former Editors-in-Chief), Elena Jim (former Lead Journalist), Anson Tong (former Lead Photographer), as well as Annie Loh (former Lead Copy-Editor) also deserve exceptional amounts of recognition for their persistent efforts towards the Media Team and our school community; we thank them for organising and managing all the logistics of the media team on such a frequent basis!

The new leadership team has already set out a range of short term and long term goals they hope to achieve by the end of their term in order to improve the efficiency of the team and the standard of what it produces. One of the projects that are currently in progress is the training of journalists to write feature articles. This allows for the progress of individual students to be showcased instead of just the rundown of an event alone. The Media Team, since its debut, has primarily placed its focus on school-based events and activities. As such, the new team is also looking to integrate elements of the personal lives, hobbies, and interests of those studying in our school through introducing blog-style articles to broaden its scope of coverage.

The new leading students are also working towards reorganising the team, grouping members into micro-teams which will follow events that fall into similar categories, allowing members to become specialised in the categories that they enjoy most. Frequent maintenance of the Sha Tin College website is also on their list of top priorities. Our overall objective is to increase inclusivity, improve productivity, and raise quality.

We hope that the new leaders will be able to take us above and beyond! Here’s to another great year of writing, photo-taking, and editing.

The Media Team Editorial