Schools
Tartan Student Journalists Launch Website and Full-Color Print Edition
Tartan's newspaper staff is covering the school in print and online this year.
newshounds are embracing the digital age.
The Plaid Press, which used to be just a black-and-white printed newspaper, was re-invented this year as a multi-channel news source with a full-color magazine-style print edition and a website including Twitter updates with the latest sports scores and video interviews with school newsmakers.
“We thought it all just worked together,” said advisor and English teacher Jeff Cavett, explaining why the Plaid Press staff decided to change everything at once.
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Plaid Press staff held a launch party last week to release its first print edition of the year. The print publication will come out monthly.
“We’ve done a lot of work,” said co-editor in chief Michaela Starr. “I feel like it’s come together to be something really special.”
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Starr said it has always been hard to get timely news into the print edition, so it made sense to convert to a magazine format in print once the website allowed them to post up-to-the-minute news online.
“Now that we have our online version, we’re able to really keep up,” she said. “A lot of our videos are done on smart phones and little cameras, so it’s really about us capturing it in the moment.”
The goal, Cavett said, is to show students that anyone can be a journalist.
“If you have a smart phone and you can take a video and you’re interested in a particular thing that’s happening to you, you can be a journalist for the Plaid Press,” he said.
Students started the year with the goal of updating the website once per week, but now they’re working toward updating it daily after every sporting event, said advisor Kristen Underhill.
The advisors said they were happy to see the reaction from students when they leaked out a few advance copies of the Plaid Press print edition before the launch party.
“Their initial reaction from (the full-color cover) was exciting,” Underhill said. “They sat and read every single article.”
Find the Tartan Plaid Press on Facebook, Twitter and at www.tartanplaidpress.com.
