The trees are lit and the sales are abundant: the holiday season is most definitely in full gear. As we ring in the New Year, The Minuteman staff plans to reflect on the year behind us.

            In 2012, our principal goal was to increase our readership. We understood that the shift online made reading the newspaper more challenging. Not having a tangible, hard copy means it’s easier to simply forget about new issues. It also eliminates “casual” readership – which often entailed full classes spending five minutes flipping through a new issue to skim stories that interested them. With this gone, our audience immediately shrunk.

We addressed this problem with a series of tangible decisions. To tap into the school’s ever-growing social network presence, we created a Twitter feed (@NAMinutemanNews) and added a Facebook “like” feature to each of our articles. In this vein, we’ve also encouraged our staff to become more Facebook present, by sharing links to articles on related pages in an effort to drive traffic. To reinstate the feeling of a copy of The Minuteman after Morning Meeting, we’ve begun to print newsletters with each set that provide sneak peaks of articles.

         We also committed ourselves to truly taking advantage of the online platform, instead of lamenting the old print days. This is most evident in our commitment to media – which was revamped thanks to an organizational change on the editorial board (which boosted creativity), as well as the enthusiasm of our media editors. As a result, the images accompanying each article have been more relevant and eye-catching and videos will continue to feature prominently in our coverage of different school issues as we move forward.

         Our final push towards our goal will also be our most significant. Our next set will be published on The Minuteman’s brand new layout. This design will feature a more streamlined front page, an easier-to-read format, and much more advanced publishing features.

            The Minuteman is a newspaper by Newark Academy and for Newark Academy. We want to create a product that appeals and satisfies as many of the students and faculty-members as possible. It is our hope that our commitment to bolstering readership has renewed enthusiasm in the publication. As always, if you have any thoughtful suggestions for further ways that we can improve, please e-mail minuteman@newarka.edu or comment on this post.

           We encourage you to all reflect on your goals of the past year and assess how you have done. Make this New Year a reflective one – build on previous goals, formulate new ones, and assess your progress. May you all enjoy a thoughtful, restful, and peaceful vacation. As always, happy reading!

Best Wishes,

The Minuteman Staff