Moving through uncharted territory

The online world is a funny thing. And, frankly, a scary thing. It's an uncharted wilderness, open for exploration and discovery. On the journey, there are both treasures and pitfalls, and you really never know what’s around the corner.

As the editor of TheDMOnline.com, I have an interesting responsibility: look like I know what I'm doing. Trial and error (along with success and failure) are my best friend and my worst enemy.

What I have working for me are backgrounds in journalism and design, along with knowledge of the Internet and some basic HTML code. What I don’t have is a staff of full-time engineers and programmers to carry out what I envision for the site. And therein lies the main problem.

The Daily Mississippian is an interesting operation, and quite the double-edged sword. On one hand, we’re a group of 100+ student editors, writers, photographers, etc. putting out a student newspaper as part of our training to eventually become full-time journalists. On the other hand, we’re producing a real source of news and information that real people, including students, faculty, staff, Oxford residents and alumni, consume. Then we’re putting it online, where it goes international gets millions of page views every year. (Oh yeah, and we go to class, too. Sometimes.)

Since I started as online editor, one of the main problems I have struggled with is working through our content management system, College Publisher. CP has been extremely helpful with everything we’ve done with the site, but it’s a template program that’s based on uploading the newspaper to a web site. And at The DM Online, we want to do more than that.

Right now we have photo slideshows, a few audio options and some occasional video. And, as of today, three blogs. I feel like we’re definitely moving in the right direction, but we’re not there yet. Part of the problem is balancing student life with work life and trying to stay sane. Another is a general lack of time. And, finally, the fact that we don’t know what’s out there or really even what we’re capable of has proven to be a frustration.

In the future, though, there are several improvements readers can look forward to. For one, a more effective site design. Soon we’ll unveil a revamp of the current site’s design, and from there we’ll work on making improvements and removing some annoyances in the current system. Our video will become much more regular, too, and we want to improve the size and quality of photos on the site. Also, readers will have the chance to get to know the editors of The DM through our blogs and upcoming podcasts, hopefully gaining an understanding of our methods, thought processes and what goes in to putting out the paper every day.

So know that we’re out there, moving through uncharted territory and attempting to find the perfect place to prosper. As with any journey, there will be ups and downs, but I have faith that we’ll find what we’re seeking: a better TheDMOnline.com. And sooner than you think.