Moving Newspaper to WordPress

A grow­ing num­ber of col­lege news­pa­per are mov­ing to Word­Press as a Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tem. For a time, Col­lege Pub­lisher seemed to be the only way a col­lege news­pa­per could be pre­sented on the web.

Has your paper made a switch in Con­tent Man­age­ment Systems?

How did it go?

What do you wish you knew before you started?

Show us your site. (Please)

 
 

The Coffee Pot Is Working Again

New Year in the Newsroom

(more…)

 

Touchdown Stories

by In: Content | Published: Sep 16, 2010

There is a foot­ball game just about every week­end from now until Thanksgiving.That means your paper (or online news site) will be devot­ing quite a bit of space and time to the ol’ pig skin.

So, we want to see your best.

Post a link to what you think is a Touch­down of a foot­ball arti­cle or col­umn and share briefly what makes it worth six points.

We’re not vot­ing and you don’t win any­thing, save for the respect of other col­lege journos and some extra hits on your site.

There’s no limit to your shar­ing. Check­ing back often is HIGHLY rec­om­mended. (as always)

Do some brag­ging, people!

 
 

Preparing for a New School Year

by In: Leadership | Published: Aug 3, 2010

Hi! My name is Tauhid Chap­pell and I’m a stu­dent at Vir­ginia Tech. I work for Planet Blacks­burg, which is a stu­dent run, web-only, news­pa­per that “rivals” (if you can even call it that) the col­lege news­pa­per on campus.

A lot needs to be done this upcom­ing semes­ter for my orga­ni­za­tion. We’re extremely under­staffed right now but I hope that a heavy recruit­ment phase dur­ing the first cou­ple of weeks will bring in some fresh tal­ent who are eager in con­tribut­ing to our site while build­ing their elec­tronic portfolio’s.

As this fall semes­ter creeps closer, how is your news­pa­per (or online-only news­pa­per) prepar­ing for the new school year? What roles need to be filled? How are you plan­ning to recruit new writ­ers, edi­tors etc.? What are some obsta­cles, both new and old, that your orga­ni­za­tion faces? Will there be any changes that occur come fall?

Hope every­one is excited to return to their respec­tive college!

 

Eliminating Facebook in the Newsroom

by In: Leadership, New Media | Published: Jul 19, 2010

As I update our web pol­icy, I am reminded of a prob­lem that I’ve run into almost con­stantly as edi­tor of my cam­pus news­pa­per: Face­book as a dis­trac­tion from work.

I’ve con­sid­ered block­ing the site on each news­room com­puter except one, where reporters/editors could log on to use the site legit­i­mately. I really don’t want to have to do that though. I’d like to instead enforce a rule that would help curb erro­neous or aim­less use of the site, espe­cially when other work could be done. There are always press releases to be rewrit­ten and story idea sheets to be writ­ten up, etc.

Any sug­ges­tions? I’d like to encour­age respon­si­ble use of the com­put­ers rather than act­ing like a mean babysit­ter. Just for ref­er­ence, its the copyeditors/designers and edi­tors them­selves who are the biggest offenders.

 

Designing a Newsroom

by In: Design | , , Published: Jun 11, 2010

Our col­lege news­pa­per has the good for­tune of get­ting a new news­room built this sum­mer.  It’s not a huge space–about 19 x 13 feet–but we can fur­nish it from scratch.  We have some plans, though I’m won­der­ing what we haven’t thought of.  What are the most use­ful ele­ments in your newsroom–anything from fur­ni­ture to elec­tron­ics to stor­age to things on the walls?  Thanks in advance.