Scroll for a running collection of the work I’m most proud of, or navigate by section.
Magazines
Click on a magazine below to read its digital version.
Spinnaker Fall ’25
“The Underlying Issue”
Print & Digital Release: Sept. 24, 2025
- Authored cover story, “Censored: UNF faculty, students on censorship in the classroom“
- Co-authored news feature on student response to university’s ICE agreement
- Spearheaded concept and theme development and assisted with design
- Assigned and coordinated writing and photography for each feature story.
Spinnaker Spring ’25:
“Culture Issue”
Print & Digital Release: Feb. 19, 2025
- Print & digital release: Feb. 19, 2025
- Co-authored cover story, “Identity Crisis: ‘It’s a North Thing’“
- Increased digital magazine reads by 17%
- Spearheaded concept and theme development and assisted with design
Multimedia
Photography
Scroll through photos I took while reporting on a “performative male contest,” a student-run event that took place on the UNF Green.
Social Media
- Produced short-form video news reporting reels to push social media users to digital content.
- Designed engaging, brand-aligned carousel posts for Instagram.
- Wrote strategic captions and headlines that teased digital content and pushed readers to our site.
Advertisements
Designed and wrote copy for brand-aligned magazine promotions for website, email campaigns and socials.
Productivity & Streamlining
Here’s how I reimagined Spinnaker’s content management system to ensure our newsroom produced to its full potential.
Before: The old coverage plan
- Due date system didn’t hold writers and editors accountable
- Color coding system was never used because it wasn’t automated
- Only allowed one week of planning at a time
- No editor assignments led to confusion once stories were submitted
- Status options were limiting and made it difficult to indicate when a story was in between stages
After: The new coverage plan
Watch my video walkthrough of the new coverage plan!
- Used dropdown menus and automated color formatting so late or unassigned stories stand out without having to reformat on each sort
- Added a post date (PD.) column in addition to due dates to hold web editors accountable for posting stories on a specific day
- Added calendar functions to due and post date columns for clarity
- Added a column for misc. notes so everyone can stay up to date with specifics if needed
- Added an “Editor” column to increase accountability and prevent confusion when writers submit stories
- Included table group views so the team can sort the sheet by what they’re specifically looking for: writer, editor, due date, etc
- Added more options to the “Status” column, allowing writers and editors to communicate easily through the entire edit-to-publish process
Search Engine Optimization
Page views ↑42%
Through increasing content production and implementing SEO practices, our site saw a 41.5% increase in page views under my leadership.*
See page views report >>
See full GA reports snapshot >>
*(Aug ’24–Nov 25 vs. Aug ’23–Nov ’24)
Team coverage projects
2024 election coverage
- Designed interactive candidate and election map graphics with Canva
- Live graphics were embedded at the top of our live update pages
- My team and I updated graphics through the night with latest precinct results from the Associated Press and Florida elections offices.
- Each reporter was assigned to a race to monitor on election night to ensure timely reporting
See our coverage below:
Hurricane coverage
Two major hurricanes plowed through Florida in the fall of 2024. To keep our readers up to date with the latest weather updates, I planned out hurricane shifts and roles for myself and the news team at Spinnaker Media.
I assigned some reporters to housing and university facilities updates, and others to National Weather Service hourly updates. We also worked in tandem with our creative team to post social media updates and drive traffic to our site.
Check out some examples of our hurricane updates below, or visit the live update logs:
- Hurricane Milton live update log
- Hurricane Helene live update log & supplementary coverage
- Tropical Storm Debby live update log
Email newsletters
One of my responsibilities at Spinnaker was to build, curate and send a weekly newsletter. I used Intuit MailChimp’s email campaign software to design a new email template and perform A/B tests on content, send times and subject lines.
Some numbers
For the News Wrap, Spinnaker Media’s weekly newsletter:
- 7.6% click rate*
- 33.6% open rate*
- 22.5% clicks per unique opens*
- 3,592 subscribers**
*YTD averages, Jan. 1–Nov. 26, 2025
**All-time total, Nov. 26, 2025
See Report >>
Newsletter design
I gradually developed the new email design to align with Spinnaker’s new brand guidelines, ADA II compliance for public universities, and to give the newsletter of more modern look and feel. Here’s what the newsletter used to look like—and what it looks like now.
News Wrap: Before
^The original News Wrap
News Wrap: After
^The new News Wrap
What I changed
- Changed to morning send time for optimal audience engagement
- Added emojis in the subject line for brand recognition
- Fixed headers and styles to be more accessible and cohesive
- Added first name merge tags to the newsletter body for personalized audience experience
- Customized preview text with new teasers each week to improve open rates
- Added more images and made everything clickable to improve click-through rates
Madelyn Schneider 