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Leadership and Change Management for The Valley Vanguard

Role: Editor-in-Chief

Client: The Valley Vanguard

Timeline: Fall 2025 - Fall 2026

Summary: Newsroom operations were unsteady because of halted knowledge-transfer and no Journalism program. As Editor-in-Chief of SVSU's student-run newspaper, I led initiatives to expand multimedia storytelling, improve editorial workflows, and strengthen collaboration across the newsroom to improve quality.

Storytelling

Project Management

Leadership

Multimedia Journalism

Key Metrics

6 Blog Posts | 10 Social Media Posts | This Many Views | This many comments

CHALLENGE & BACKGROUND

STARS is a nonprofit transit agency dedicated to provided transportation within Saginaw County. Its funding boils down to three main sources: federal funding, state funding, and local funding. For STARS, that local funding comes from a City of Saginaw millage, but their riders have needs outside of the city boundary. Therefore, STARS is primarily a city service but they continue to serve within the greater Saginaw County.


To balance their budget, they hope to pursue a county-wide millage to continue quality service and meet the needs for the entire county. STARS has put a millage vote on the ballot in Saginaw County before, but to no success. They hope to try again in the coming year, and that's where I come in.


Without the bandwidth to execute strategic marketing, communications, or PR campaigns, I was responsible as an intern for building the base of a successful PR campaign to begin changing local perceptions of public transit well ahead of a potential vote.


STRATEGY

Leadership Goals

  1. Destigmatize public transit within Saginaw County.

  2. Change local perceptions of public transit.

  3. Produce evergreen content for later use during a millage campaign.

Method

I decided to tell rider stories under a unified message with intentional branding: Every Ride has a Story. For each story, I would follow the same process.

  1. Collect Communication Assets via Personal Interviews

Using my background in journalism, I followed leads and connected with individuals who had positive experiences with STARS. I then conducted thorough interviews virtually and in-person to determine an angle and collect all information needed to share an impactful and trustworthy story.

I also collected any supporting media like headshots, action photos, and video that would uplift the story.

  1. Tailor the Story for Communication Channels

STARS has four external digital communication channels: a website, a community-partner email list, and a FaceBook and Instagram account. For this campaign, the website would act as the main distribution channel with full-length blog posts. To reach the greater community, Facebook and Instagram were the complimentary communication channels.

In order to perform well on social media platforms, the stories couldn't be shared in the same medium as the website. I used the assets collected in the initial stage (Collect Communication Assets via Personal Interviews) to create social media graphics. With Canva, I was able to create cohesive designs under a uniform identity maintaining STARS brand standards with a unique campaign feel.

Deliverables

"Black Excellence Ball to debut at SVSU" Podcast

Graphics created for a single post promoting Todd's story on Instagram.

Alternate graphics created for Facebook, a more human-centered approach for two separate posts.

Social media assets produced to promote Kenyatta's story across Instagram and Facebook. Still Graphic (left) and introductory reel (right) posted one week apart.

RESULTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Facebook: All posts received an average of _ views and _ likes

    • Comments (main KPI):

  • Instagram:

  • Website Blog Views:

Notes: Instagram profile was reactivated under my ownership in July 2026. The profile was inactive since 2021 with blank posts and an average of one like and 19 followers. It now has _ followers with an average of _ likes and a total of _ multimedia posts.

Website was linked to Google Analytics under my ownership and a view-counter plugin was added in October 2026. Blog view totals only represent October 2026 - November 2026.

2026 | Danielle Carlisi