Onward we go

Of all the new things we've done at the Chanticleer this year, the thing that I'm most proud of is the amount of convergence we've brought to the JSU student paper.

For those outside of the industry, convergence is a dirty word to most print journalists. The tradionalists especially. Basically, the word just means more work.

The term refers to the melding of the printed page with various online and multimedia aspects of journalism. As the world in general moves to the Internet, print journalism is no different.

They say newspapers are a dying medium, and to some extent they're right. Fewer and fewer people read anything, much less something they can read quickly with the click of a mouse. For free.

So when I looked at what the Chanticleer needed going into the school year — and it was a lot of things — the first thing on my list was to redesign the Web site.

Thanks in large part to good friend and Online Editor Chris Pittman, we did just that.

With the new site, we've implemented new aspects to the Chanticleer as a product that didn't exist before.

This blog you're reading right now (painstakingly, no doubt) is a new feature this year. We have regular photo slideshows. We started weekly podcasts this semester. The only thing we haven't ventured into successfully is video.

Suffice it to say, as if it didn't take enough work to put out 8 pages of content a week, in my heart of hearts I know how hard my staff has worked to build this paper's product as a whole. And it pains me that it takes so much work for so little compensation.

If it doesn't come across in person or in the office, I hope my staff knows how grateful I am for their help and support. This job sucks sometimes, and I hope they feel the rewards I do.

But my sincerest hope is that readers of our paper appreciate not only the quality of the product in print, but our online presence as well.

I hardly think that all of the extra work our staff has done has gone for naught, though sometimes it feels that way. It really is harder work than it looks like.

And we're only just beginning.