When I was first named as The Argonaut’s next editor-in-chief, I struggled with what my vision was for our publication. How could I possibly help redefine an organization that has been around for over 120 years? The truth is, I don’t plan to.
This next semester I do not wish to redefine The Argonaut, but instead build upon it and show the community both within the newsroom and outside of it how important The Argonaut is — not only for students at the University of Idaho but citizens of the city of Moscow.
Journalism is a form of community service. As a publication, we gather information from our communities to keep individuals informed and give citizens a voice on the issues that matter to them.
Everything we do is based on how we can inform our community. The changes I plan to implement next semester are in-house things people don’t really see, but they make a difference.
Next semester we will be implementing new organization systems to publish quality journalism in a more efficient manner that connects the different sections of the paper.
With a predominantly new staff, I plan on providing resources for the members of the newsroom to grow as journalists and provide a voice to the campus community through several outlets.
We plan to branch out and continue to build upon not only our print content, but our web and multimedia content such as our weekly broadcast, photo galleries and social media presence.
Broadcast will be forming a section of its own, changing ArgoCast from a recap of the news with a new name and its own content.
In addition to building our current systems to meet community needs, The Argonaut plans to work more with our community by asking people what they want to read so we can create a paper that meets the community’s needs.
I cannot promise there won’t be difficult stories the community does not want to see. I wouldn’t be doing my job if there weren’t. What I can promise is we will produce the same high-quality journalism we strive for every semester and take pride in doing so.
I have loved my time at The Argonaut and through these changes I hope we can continue giving the same experiences I have loved to our staff, and continue the legacy of community service through journalism within our community.
Brianna Finnegan can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @briannafinnega8