It’s the first day of daily publication at the Oregon Daily Emerald.
It’s the last first day of the school year at the University of Oregon.
It’s the first day of my last year as a college student.
It’s also the first day of my newest endeavor: blogging.
I decided to keep an editor’s blog because I care deeply about student journalism, and I want to be part of the discussion and debate about student journalism issues. I care about how college newspapers teach journalists and how they serve their communities.
I’ll blog about everything, from college newspapers to journalism education to my experiences as editor in chief of the Daily Emerald, every Monday.
Because it’s the first day of daily, I want to talk about why college newspapers are still more popular in print than online with students. My inspiration is from this article: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=136&aid=190619.
Here are some things I’ve noticed about print pick-up at Oregon.
1. Students pick up the paper to read in between class.
2. Reading the paper is often part of a morning routine.
3. Catchy designs appeal to readers.
4. Athletics coverage guarantees a high pick-up rate.
5. Students often pick it up just for the sudoku and crossword.
These five observations lead me to one conclusion: The print product still appeals because of its immediacy on campus. It’s everywhere. You can’t go onto campus every day without seeing it. Also, it’s free, and free is a big thing with college students.
And even though students are adept with social media and mobile devices, if there’s nothing different online than in print, why go online?
It seems that college journalism is in a bubble: While daily metropolitan newspapers continue to lose money, college newspapers have a niche audience that still drives print advertising. It’s less than it was in the 1990s, but it’s still there. And because college papers have this semi-luxury, online has been less of a priority, often for money reasons.
Just because students aren’t using the website as much doesn’t mean college papers shouldn’t have good ones. After all, part of our job as student journalists is to learn about all aspects of the industry — including producing and putting content on a website.
But more crucial than having a nice looking, user-friendly website is having content differing enough from the print product to make students go there, even if they’ve already seen the print edition.
That’s just part of what we’re doing at the Emerald this year.
We want students to read the print product, so we’re making it more visually appealing and thinking about how visuals can tell stories, too.
We want students to read the online edition, so we’re producing more and different content that doesn’t exist in the print paper.
And because we want students to read both, we’re explaining why campus issues matter.
As I said before, it’s a day of firsts.
And it’s day one of what (I hope) is the new face of the Daily Emerald.
Monday, Monday
Daily Emerald
September 26, 2010
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