This edition of the Torch will mark the fourth and final one for the fall term. With that being said, I am excited to announce we will be positioning into a web-focused newsroom over the winter break.
As the Torch team finishes this term, we will be making significant changes to modernize the newsroom. As Editor, I feel that it is my responsibility to ensure that the Torch is a viable and sustainable outfit for the Lane Community College community.
The newsroom has lately found itself to be outdated.
We at the Torch love the newspaper, but what good is spending student fees on printing physical newspapers that are rarely picked-up?
We receive student funding and that, to me, says we should be oriented to provide our service for students. I would love to give people a tangible paper to hold as they read their news, but the print is not financially stable.
The actual paper is a tradition I love, but news stories being released every two weeks isn’t going to meet today’s standards. This December, our editorial staff will work diligently on designing a system that will provide our readers with the most current journalism on campus.
The newsroom’s new model will focus on social media and the lcctorch.com website. We are an independent organization and rely heavily on ad revenue. Not many these days are looking to place ads in print media – especially our humble community college newspaper.
The changes will bring in more opportunities as well. We will be creating a web design team to facilitate the changes.
Our mission is to make our content more relevant by providing it faster. This will also allow the Torch to give experience to the staff so they can learn how modern-day journalism is done.
The goal has never been to make money, but to build the Torch toward its full potential.
This means capitalizing on today’s trends. With social media, we believe that we can attract more students to read the content on our website.
I have lost count of how many students have asked me during class if I know what all the “fair contract now” signs are about. At this point in the term, as I find myself becoming more jaded to the question, I can only respond with “please read the paper.”
But that’s the problem; there are plenty of issues students seek answers to around campus. For the most part, all they need to do is read the paper. If we can make the Torch more modern and accessible to a tech-savvy readership, I believe we can deliver the news to who we are trying to reach.
The plan is not to forfeit papers entirely. We will still fill the blue boxes across campus with a print edition paper. For the time being, we plan to make a paper issue once a term that will be a compilation of our best articles, photography and graphics for the term. The print edition will be ambitious.
If students don’t want to pick up a paper for their news then we will go where they are — the internet.
For more up to date content, visit us online at lcctorch.com.
