A New Newspaper
A new year means change. Change can be good, or change can be bad. The newspaper has been changed this year, but the question is, for better or for worse? There have been changes in the management, the behind-the-scenes work, and the actual writing.
The largest change by far is a change in departments. In the years past Mr. Dillion, a math teacher, held the meetings. This year Ms. Kinney, an English teacher, will be advising the staff. Ms. Kinney has been teaching for seven years, but it is only her third here at Park Center. At one point of time, her major was journalism. Now, quite appropriately, she is running the school newspaper. She also wants the issues to report on the diverse interests of Park Center and the suburbs that everyone comes from. In other words, she wants articles about local happenings and events that influence the community. Overall, she is quite optimistic.
A couple of the important changes we are making won't be so obvious, but are important nonetheless. We may be switching printers to a local company to support the community. We will also be using a different program for creating the format of the newspaper due to problems we had last year with Page Maker. Sadly, this new program will be of the Microsoft variety. The staff also desires to get at the bare minimum, three issues to the public. The head editor, Brianna Brickweg, also seems to be a bit peeved this year; she will push harder for exact dates, planned in advance, for all articles for an issue to be turned in. Unfortunately, some of the staff is skeptical of this style, as there may not be enough articles to be turned in time regardless of the necessary badgering. A member of the staff (who just so happens to be myself) is also working on a website for the newspaper. The website is www.chris.campbellogic.com/pcnews.
The newspaper will also be switching tracks in terms of style. Such as the newspaper will also contain more school event based articles. This may mean that there could be a sports page in the not so distant future. There will be more photographs in this paper due to the fact that the staff is borrowing cameras from the media center. The staff is also thinking of creating an advice column. They attempted to do so last year, but it fell through due to apparent lack of interest. Also, there has been some talk of two people writing separate articles on a hot debate for each issue subject. The staff will also try to fill the newspaper with advertisements in order to fill their stomachs during the meetings. They will also use the money gained by ads to print more issues.
Behind all of these changes, the concept is the same. Students write articles. The staff does not tackle people (usually), they do not recite long mathematical formulas from memory, they do not deliver the mail, they do not create grand pieces of art, nor do they chat idly. The newspaper is for writing. Even if there are photos, they will not take the place of quality articles (they will take the place of poor articles). The staff guarantees they will not give you a newspaper full of flowers and frothy with happiness shared by all. No one lives in such a world. The news should never be aimed to please. It should only be there to inform, and possibly inspire. The news should never be one sided, there should always be a full spectrum of views. For this reason, we will always keep our pages free for those who want to put in their two cents. Anyone can write, and the staff will even help writers not associated with the newspaper to turn their rough drafts into polished articles. The staff does not write to satisfy their egos. The only reason they write is that someone just like yourself may pick this lump of processed wood pulp up and examine it.
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