The Minuteman: The Official Newspaper of Newark Academy since 1940

The Minuteman

The Official Newark Academy Newspaper

Why the Transition to an Online Publication?

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by

aulrich11
in

So, we have jumped the boat.  Yes, Luddites amongst us at Newark Academy, the day has come when The Minuteman appears not on the soft, grayed paper of newsprint, but in the bright white of a digital WordPress blog. The Minuteman has gone online.

Whether the initial shock causes readers to quiver in delight or to cringe in disgust, journalism is changing, and it is time for The Minuteman to ride the wave with an experiment in online publication.  The evidence speaks for itself.  Ever since the end of WWII, the amount of newspaper subscriptions in the United States has plummeted, from 140 subscriptions per 100 families in 1947, to fewer than 50 subscriptions today, according to a recent article in The Atlantic. The traditional newspaper has suffered in competition not only with other publications, but also with radio stations, television programs, and more recently, online news outlets.

The fight is in no way a fair one.  While the traditional newspaper is confined to size eleven font and two-dimensional images, online publications have the freedom to utilize slideshows and videos, to link related documents to a page, and to allow readers the ability to provide instant feedback on an article by way of a comment.  The Internet has also unlocked writers from the confines of filling specific column lengths, allowing them to pursue stories as they develop, and to update articles as they see fit.  It is no wonder then with so many incentives in favor of online publication, that the employment of people who work in American print newspapers has fallen from 415,000 a decade ago to 300,000 people today, according to a New York Times article.

There is of course a financial incentive as well.  Whereas printed newspapers have only limited spaces for advertisements, the main source of newspaper revenue, the web offers boundless space for advertisers to reel in interested consumers.  The cost of publishing is also a huge operating cost for newspapers to stomach. For traditional media outlets, profits have understandably fallen from 40 percent to 14 percent in the last ten years, according to a recent New York Times article.  At the same time, Internet publications increased their profits from 4 to 22 percent.

In considering these facts and the general decline of the print newspaper, the editors and staff of The Minuteman have decided that it is time for an experiment in online publication.  Our primary objective will remain as always to provide the Newark Academy community with the most factually accurate and newsworthy articles, and we hope that this shift inspires more readers to probe into the depths of the newspaper’s content.  The advantages offered by the move to an online publication, including more timely articles, more varied content, and limitless writing, have pushed us ahead in our goal to improve the paper for both writers and readers.

So, we plunge ahead in this experiment.  Perhaps it will be a colossal failure – no one will read the paper, students will forget The Minuteman exists, etc. – but we highly doubt it.  A recent article in the Daily Telegraph cited a study that found that teenagers spend an average of thirty-one hours a week online.  While this estimate may be high (higher most likely than the amount of hours most Seniors spend sleeping), the study bodes well for the future of The Minuteman.

We hope the move online entices readers with its accessibility and keeps interest in the community high with the opportunity for more content presented in a variety of new ways.  The move online is, after all, an experiment, and we do plan to supplement the online reading with some limited print publications.  However, in keeping in step with the trends of journalism in the world today, we believe we are headed in the right direction.

We extend our thanks to those who made this move possible, namely our managing editor Christopher Davis ‘12, Mr. Alford and the Technology Department, our advisors Ms Morin and Mr. Stourton, our editors and staff writers, and Ms Galvin and the administration for affording us the freedom to plunge ahead in this experiment.  

With that, we invite you to read the first edition of the online Minuteman newspaper.  Happy reading, and best wishes for a productive and enlightening year.

Very Respectfully,

Your Editors-in-Chief,

Delphine Slotten ‘11 and Ashley Ulrich ‘11

Comments

2 responses to “Why the Transition to an Online Publication?”

  1. rmacaylo10 Avatar
    rmacaylo10

    Although I was initially opposed to the idea of an online paper, you have proven me wrong. This is a fantastic publication, and I’m thrilled that you have taken such initiative. This is a testament to your hard work, and it shows me how talented, creative, and dedicated the staff is. I look forward to following your progress online. Congratulations MInuteman!

  2. Brian Simontacchi '10 Avatar
    Brian Simontacchi ’10

    This is really interesting.

    I happen to now be speaking to you as an alumnus of the Academy. It’s almost like I’m dead to everyone. I guess that would make me the proverbial ghost in the room?

    Man, everything’s going online. I can see why you cats would have done this. The first thought is, in order to save paper. Cool. I’m all for saving trees, saving paper, saving the world that we kind of destroyed.

    The second possible reason is, it’s more accessible. This is dangerous, in my opinion. We live in a society where instant gratification is the name of the game; in other words, if we can’t get it now, we’re going to kick walls and throw fits. This attitude is one I adopt, but that’s an entirely different issue. The thought I have with this is that there is something gradually gratifying to paper. If you take a book and flip the pages, there’s something realistic about that to me. I can not only remember that I read the book because I have the book, but also because I remember the visual aspects of what I read. When you browse the internet, you take a look at a page for so long, and skip to other images and colors, thus blurring the image of what you read mentally. Plus, there’s the whole idea that the printing press is kind of dying and we don’t really want to become an illiterate society (see that Clancy Flynn article from ’05-’06). There’s also the idea that the printing press is sacred, that paper is sacred (parchment was first used to print the Bible). If the intent of paper is holy, by throwing paper under the shelf are our intentions diplomatic? I’m not saying you have to believe in Judeo-Christian ideology, but I think the concept of paper has a little more weight to a lot of people on a spiritual and historical level then we would suspect. The Minuteman is no different. I remember when Sam Weinreich wrote the humor pages (you don’t even KNOW PEOPLE who know who that is, I imagine) and it was, in my opinion, quite funny. I got visual satisfaction out of the ink, out something I could grab. This format doesn’t do anything for me as a reader. It strains my eyes and increases the severity of my glasses’ prescription. The point I’m trying/failing to make: why do we have to be such Bisy Backsons
    (see: Christopher Hoff, Tao of Pooh (I’m looking at you, Ms. Morin)) ?

    Some people are going to have issues with the gradual phase-out of paper, and some people won’t. I have a feeling that because the Minuteman moved to the internet, the majority of the people who made the decision to switch decided it was a better format.

    I think there’s a label issue, and this is the last thing I have to say. You say this is an online newspaper. How is this on paper? Isn’t it more of a blog?

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