Notes from the desk For The Campus, a Web revolution

Author: Brian Fung

Ever since journalism became a true profession in the early 20th century, citizens looked to the news to learn about the world around them. Today, the news is the news - and while print, TV and radio organizations still perform the same function they did a century ago, that very commitment to tradition actually deserves much of the blame for causing journalism's current plight. It's no secret the news industry is collapsing - partly because of the economic hardships facing everybody else, but mostly because the heavy hitters failed to capitalize on the Internet back when they still could. Call it a failure of imagination.

Luckily, community newspapers like ours have escaped the identity crisis gripping larger media outlets. In fact, for us, the future is looking up (if it was ever looking down in the first place). Our recent April Fools' issue saw widespread success and earned effusive praise. We've taken bold steps this spring to upgrade our production software and photography equipment. And we've also brought on new editors for some added firepower. These expansions have made us more all the more competitive and should lead to an improvement in your overall Middlebury Campus experience.

But these developments do little to address a fundamental imbalance in the way we operate. Today, Campus editors spend most of their time laying out a product that no more than 2,800 people will ever see. By contrast, our Web site will receive upwards of 18,000 unique hits this week alone, and over 70,000 this month. There's something wrong with this picture. Our priorities are out of sync - why do we spend countless hours slaving over our print edition when the Web is such a growth market? This is where the major leaguers failed. Until we readjust, this imbalance will make our jobs increasingly difficult.

To show you how we plan to adapt, let's take a one-sentence trip down memory lane. In 2001, we launched the Web site you see today when you visit MiddleburyCampus.com. For the past eight years, it's given us basic Web functionality - the ability to post stories whenever we publish a new issue, and a handful of other features. But in today's Web 2.0 society, that's not enough. The most successful news sites today offer multimedia like streaming video, interactive animation, support for social media bookmarks and RSS feeds. What's more, page design has become just as important as the actual reporting. Just compare today's version of Facebook to its predecessors. The San Francisco-based company has proven obsessive about Facebook's layout, revising it repeatedly to drive users to certain tools and making the user experience itself more efficient.

With our coming site refresh, we hope to make MiddleburyCampus.com more than a simple carbon copy of its print sibling. Accessing articles will become less of a chore with a rotating slideshow of top stories displayed on the front page. Photo essays and audio/video podcasts about the week's news will supplement our print reporting. We'll add to our roster of columnists and have them write blogs. Most importantly, the site will see updates three times a week, making our Web site trusted online resource for all things Middlebury.

All these changes will cause a fundamental shift in the way this newspaper is produced. Where in the past our Web editor would craft our online edition alone and after hours, future Web editors will have a team of staff reporters underneath them just like any other section. What's more, those editors will become an integral part of the production process.

This semester, we've been hard at work laying the foundation for our new site. When we make the jump in September, get ready for an entirely new online experience at The Campus.

As always, thanks for your continued support.