Although graduation is a week away, I think it's safe to say that The Daily Mississippian is now under new management.
Despite the fact that the incoming editorial staff has been working diligently over the past two weeks to settle into our new positions, the paper won't "officially" roll into our hands until May 27, 2008.
As Campus News Editor for the summer, I am truly experiencing a myriad of emotions. Considering I only began writing for The DM as a staff reporter four months ago, acquiring this position is both exciting and a bit overwhelming.
Let's face it; the University of Mississippi is approaching one of the most exciting years in its history. Being an Ole Miss student in the 2008-09 school year will be an amazing privilege.
Because of this, it is my personal goal to provide relevant news that accurately reflects the concerns and interests of every Ole Miss student and faculty member.
I want to know what the Ole Miss community cares about. I want to provide an outlet to explore and possibly resolve issues that truly matter to Ole Miss students and faculty members.
However, I am only one woman and there is no way I can possibly know about everything happening around here. The staff of The Daily Mississippian is here to serve YOU. So, I encourage everyone to share your ideas for what you would like to see in the campus news section in the upcoming months by sending me an email at thedmnews@gmail.com.
With that said, I wish everyone the best of luck during Finals Week. For those of you remaining in the Ole Miss community during the summer, keep an eye out for some pretty incredible changes to The DM and TheDMOnline.com.
For those returning in the fall, have a terrific summer. We'll be here when you get back.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The DM Online gets a facelift
Let's be honest: TheDMOnline.com is ugly. The obnoxious red, the silly globe graphic, the novelty font in the main logo... It certainly doesn't reflect The Daily Mississippian or its content. Though the print and online versions are two different types of media and have different readerships, they should still coordinate. So a few months ago I made a new design and sent it over to College Publisher, our content management system, and today I received word that it's ready to go.
The new site is based in blue and white instead the overbearing red and blue of the current site. It also features an updated logo and a few font changes, but it's still the site you know how to use and it still functions the same way. We're improving other aspects as well, but we have to take baby steps with the web site — unlike with a newspaper redesign, there is a whole engine running behind the web site, and not many people speak its language.
I hope the updated design of The DM Online now better reflects the print version of the newspaper and the content of the site. I certainly feel that it's a step in the right direction of what The DM Online can and will eventually become.
The new site is based in blue and white instead the overbearing red and blue of the current site. It also features an updated logo and a few font changes, but it's still the site you know how to use and it still functions the same way. We're improving other aspects as well, but we have to take baby steps with the web site — unlike with a newspaper redesign, there is a whole engine running behind the web site, and not many people speak its language.
I hope the updated design of The DM Online now better reflects the print version of the newspaper and the content of the site. I certainly feel that it's a step in the right direction of what The DM Online can and will eventually become.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
An unknown future?
It seems like everything I read that concerns the world of journalism is focused on one thing: the future of print. Every blogger (including myself, ironically), every professor, every newscaster, every reporter: it seems like they all have one thing on the brain. And even if it isn't a prominent thought, I can't say it isn't something I often dwell on. After all, the newspaper is something every American citizen knows well and expects to see in his or her everyday life. But what about the day when the newspaper just doesn't come?
Editor Marti Covington and I were casually discussing the future of print at dinner earlier tonight and both came to similar epiphanies: why do we care so much about the future of print? While it's a huge concern and the thought of hundreds of my potential employers ceasing to print physical copies of their newspapers is scary, I have no fear that journalism will not continue to grow and thrive. When the Internet was invented and began to shape itself into what we know it as today, the world of journalism knew it was in for a big change. But why is that such a scary thing? Why is change so hard for people, namely the journalists themselves, to accept and even embrace?
Apple released the iPhone in the summer of 2007, the first phone with a "real" Internet browser on it. You don't just get the baby Internet that most mobile phones know, but you get the real deal. When I load up the New York Times on the iPhone, it's the same version I see when I access it from my MacBook. And if I can do that in 2007 (and now 2008), how will I be accessing NYTimes.com in 2015? Or 2030?
When I first began studying journalism, I was totally turned off by the idea of online journalism. Publishing my work somewhere that wasn't a physical, printed version of a newspaper or magazine wasn't anything I was interested in doing. Now, three years later, I'm finally beginning to warm up to it. I won't say I prefer it — yet — but I can see myself getting to that point soon. After all, what's not to like? Publishing online is instant, quickly correctable and easy to update. Also, it's nowhere near as harmful to the environment as printing and disposing of a newspaper, the shipping is cheap (just a monthly ISP bill) and wireless and the space is unlimited. Why don't we think it's too good to be true?
Thinking about the process of The DM, where the writers and photographers submit their assignments by 4 p.m. and 11 hours later Marti is sending a completed newspaper to the printer on Jackson Ave., is almost sickening because of the amount of time and effort it takes. But what if we didn't have a newspaper to print, rather just the web site from which you accessed this blog? What if we didn't have a 3 a.m. deadline for the printer and were able to publish the stories as they were turned in randomly throughout the day? What if we didn't have to spend 8 hours coming up with, implementing and then tweaking the design of the paper, just to come back the next day and do it again? Would it make our jobs easier and allow us to be on a more normal sleep schedule? I can't help but wonder.
In the end, I want print to stick around and I think it will, at least for a while. However, I won't be surprised the day the New York Times or the Washington Post stops printing weekday editions of their papers to focus on the Saturday and Sunday print versions while updating the web sites with their normal news coverage. And I won't be surprised when a device that downloads the morning online editions of my favorite newspapers so I can flip through them at my breakfast table is invented to replace the usually paperboy version.
Actually thinking about a feasible future for online journalism makes it much less scary than fretting about it all the time. I think it's something that could happen soon, that will happen eventually, and that we'll have to deal with. And though the Internet is still something new, shiny and somewhat scary to most of the old farts in the current media world, for my generation it's just the Internet. It revolutionized the way we do everything in life, and while it's odd that the journalism world is so behind, I have to think that eventually it will catch up with the Internet (if the Internet doesn't catch up with it first, that is).
So as I begin to search for jobs for after graduation in May, I'm not shying away from the online positions as I once thought and said I would. And while I suppose everyone will continue reading, writing and discussing the "demise" of print, I can't help but thinking a little vocabulary changing isn't in order here. Perhaps it's not the demise at all, but the reinvention, and hopefully the reinvigoration, of journalism and it's journalists. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Check back with me in 2015 or 2030 and I'll let you know.
Editor Marti Covington and I were casually discussing the future of print at dinner earlier tonight and both came to similar epiphanies: why do we care so much about the future of print? While it's a huge concern and the thought of hundreds of my potential employers ceasing to print physical copies of their newspapers is scary, I have no fear that journalism will not continue to grow and thrive. When the Internet was invented and began to shape itself into what we know it as today, the world of journalism knew it was in for a big change. But why is that such a scary thing? Why is change so hard for people, namely the journalists themselves, to accept and even embrace?
Apple released the iPhone in the summer of 2007, the first phone with a "real" Internet browser on it. You don't just get the baby Internet that most mobile phones know, but you get the real deal. When I load up the New York Times on the iPhone, it's the same version I see when I access it from my MacBook. And if I can do that in 2007 (and now 2008), how will I be accessing NYTimes.com in 2015? Or 2030?
When I first began studying journalism, I was totally turned off by the idea of online journalism. Publishing my work somewhere that wasn't a physical, printed version of a newspaper or magazine wasn't anything I was interested in doing. Now, three years later, I'm finally beginning to warm up to it. I won't say I prefer it — yet — but I can see myself getting to that point soon. After all, what's not to like? Publishing online is instant, quickly correctable and easy to update. Also, it's nowhere near as harmful to the environment as printing and disposing of a newspaper, the shipping is cheap (just a monthly ISP bill) and wireless and the space is unlimited. Why don't we think it's too good to be true?
Thinking about the process of The DM, where the writers and photographers submit their assignments by 4 p.m. and 11 hours later Marti is sending a completed newspaper to the printer on Jackson Ave., is almost sickening because of the amount of time and effort it takes. But what if we didn't have a newspaper to print, rather just the web site from which you accessed this blog? What if we didn't have a 3 a.m. deadline for the printer and were able to publish the stories as they were turned in randomly throughout the day? What if we didn't have to spend 8 hours coming up with, implementing and then tweaking the design of the paper, just to come back the next day and do it again? Would it make our jobs easier and allow us to be on a more normal sleep schedule? I can't help but wonder.
In the end, I want print to stick around and I think it will, at least for a while. However, I won't be surprised the day the New York Times or the Washington Post stops printing weekday editions of their papers to focus on the Saturday and Sunday print versions while updating the web sites with their normal news coverage. And I won't be surprised when a device that downloads the morning online editions of my favorite newspapers so I can flip through them at my breakfast table is invented to replace the usually paperboy version.
Actually thinking about a feasible future for online journalism makes it much less scary than fretting about it all the time. I think it's something that could happen soon, that will happen eventually, and that we'll have to deal with. And though the Internet is still something new, shiny and somewhat scary to most of the old farts in the current media world, for my generation it's just the Internet. It revolutionized the way we do everything in life, and while it's odd that the journalism world is so behind, I have to think that eventually it will catch up with the Internet (if the Internet doesn't catch up with it first, that is).
So as I begin to search for jobs for after graduation in May, I'm not shying away from the online positions as I once thought and said I would. And while I suppose everyone will continue reading, writing and discussing the "demise" of print, I can't help but thinking a little vocabulary changing isn't in order here. Perhaps it's not the demise at all, but the reinvention, and hopefully the reinvigoration, of journalism and it's journalists. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Check back with me in 2015 or 2030 and I'll let you know.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Negatives into positives
Since the spring semester started about two weeks ago, I have considered quitting or taking a lengthy sabbatical from my job as editor of The Daily Mississippian approximately 1,029, 890, 145, 502.662 times. It hasn't been that I don't love my job, my staff or the newspaper itself. Rather, I have been confronted with a lot of issues all at once and it's starting to take a toll on me.
This is a hard job, dear readers. Not just because of the decisions I have to make everyday about what should be printed in the paper and what should not, but also because I am subject to a rather intense, uncomfortable level of scrutiny. There are students, alums, administrators, faculty members, community members and other journalists looking at our product word for word, line by line everyday. Many of them are very, very vocal in letting me know exactly what they think -- and let's just say that people who are pleased are not the ones who write and call me. I appreciate every comment I get, no matter how virulent, but reading things like "The DM sucks" and "The DM is the worst paper ever, it should be shut down immediately" all day long does tend to wear on my nerves. I know how hard our entire staff works and when we fail to connect with our readers, it affects the mood in the entire office.
What gets to me most though are comments that attack me as a person. I like to think the "editor hat" is something I can put on when I get into the office, when I make some newspaper-related appearance, or when I am dealing with DM business. When it's not one of those moments, I like to just be an Ole Miss senior approaching graduation in May and trying to figure our what in the world I want to do with my life. But comments that say "Marti Covington is ignorant," "Marti Covington is an atrocious human being" or "Marti Covington is the stupidest, most wretched person on earth" hit me much closer to home. I sometimes wonder, "Can't this person see Marti Covington, student and Marti Covington, editor are almost like different people? Why did they have to take it there? They don't really know me."
The solution is two-part. First, I need to stop taking negative comments personally, because *hopefully* they were never intended to hit me on that level. Second, I need to be more visible in the community. I've found that when Ole Miss and Oxford residents actually meet and speak with me in person, they come away with a greater understanding of who I am and how that affects the paper we put out everyday. They see that I'm not an angry black militant hell-bent on dismantling positive race relations at the university. They see that I'm not a left-wing, hippie-type that hates Greeks and wishes the Greek system did not exist.
What I am is a regular student who loves journalism and wants the student newspaper to reflect that love and appreciation. I try go to parties at Billiards and on the Square and hang out at my friends' houses just as often as I'm in front of my computer at the Student Media Center. I take a few hours off work on Sundays to make my own sorority's chapter meetings. I sneak off between classes for impromptu shopping trips to Batesville, Tupelo or Memphis, depending on my time.
Simply put, I'm just an average student with a rather extraordinary job. But the longer I keep this position and give 100 percent of myself everyday to being successful in it, the more extraordinary I also become -- and that is really exciting.
This is a hard job, dear readers. Not just because of the decisions I have to make everyday about what should be printed in the paper and what should not, but also because I am subject to a rather intense, uncomfortable level of scrutiny. There are students, alums, administrators, faculty members, community members and other journalists looking at our product word for word, line by line everyday. Many of them are very, very vocal in letting me know exactly what they think -- and let's just say that people who are pleased are not the ones who write and call me. I appreciate every comment I get, no matter how virulent, but reading things like "The DM sucks" and "The DM is the worst paper ever, it should be shut down immediately" all day long does tend to wear on my nerves. I know how hard our entire staff works and when we fail to connect with our readers, it affects the mood in the entire office.
What gets to me most though are comments that attack me as a person. I like to think the "editor hat" is something I can put on when I get into the office, when I make some newspaper-related appearance, or when I am dealing with DM business. When it's not one of those moments, I like to just be an Ole Miss senior approaching graduation in May and trying to figure our what in the world I want to do with my life. But comments that say "Marti Covington is ignorant," "Marti Covington is an atrocious human being" or "Marti Covington is the stupidest, most wretched person on earth" hit me much closer to home. I sometimes wonder, "Can't this person see Marti Covington, student and Marti Covington, editor are almost like different people? Why did they have to take it there? They don't really know me."
The solution is two-part. First, I need to stop taking negative comments personally, because *hopefully* they were never intended to hit me on that level. Second, I need to be more visible in the community. I've found that when Ole Miss and Oxford residents actually meet and speak with me in person, they come away with a greater understanding of who I am and how that affects the paper we put out everyday. They see that I'm not an angry black militant hell-bent on dismantling positive race relations at the university. They see that I'm not a left-wing, hippie-type that hates Greeks and wishes the Greek system did not exist.
What I am is a regular student who loves journalism and wants the student newspaper to reflect that love and appreciation. I try go to parties at Billiards and on the Square and hang out at my friends' houses just as often as I'm in front of my computer at the Student Media Center. I take a few hours off work on Sundays to make my own sorority's chapter meetings. I sneak off between classes for impromptu shopping trips to Batesville, Tupelo or Memphis, depending on my time.
Simply put, I'm just an average student with a rather extraordinary job. But the longer I keep this position and give 100 percent of myself everyday to being successful in it, the more extraordinary I also become -- and that is really exciting.
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