At issue: Our digital-first transition

Our take: Thanks for taking this wild ride with us

This semester, we brought the Beacon into the 21st century by aiming to update our website daily. Every day we strive to put up content informing the Emerson community on what’s happening. The change didn’t come naturally—we were comfortable doing things the old way with ingrained traditions about deadlines and layouts. Our weeks revolved around Wednesday night production meetings, and we rarely broke news online. We struggled with this transition, but we think the paper will only get better from here.  

We’d like to take a few sentences to recognize our staff. The students here formulated a plan to overhaul our newsroom structure, redesigned our website, and taught ourselves a new way of looking at campus news. There’s no real adult making editorial or operational decisions here.

Of course, the rollout wasn’t perfect. Our print edition often fell short as we prioritized our online production. Sometimes we go a few days without posting. But we’re still learning. And according to the first place trophy we received from the Associated Collegiate Press for our website, it’s not going as terribly as we feared.

Next semester, we want to increase reader engagement and cultivate a stronger relationship with the students on campus. Active newspapers can be a tool for community engagement and interaction—and we want to ensure that our readers see us as a valuable and reliable news source. We want to get our content out to wider audiences through social media, and accompany every story with high-quality multimedia aspects, such as videos and photos. The journalism industry is changing every day, and we want to keep up with the standards. That’s what our readers deserve, but it’s also our opportunity to best prepare for post-graduation careers.

As always, we want to hear how you, our readers, think we can improve. We welcome any suggestions for our content, presentation, or interactions with the community. Email us at [email protected].

You won’t find a new issue of the Beacon on the newsstands next Thursday, but like our Facebook page or subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on our latest stories—including an extra special editorial from your favorite editors next week.