EDITORIAL: Why we're moving to one print issue a week

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We, The Editorial Board of The DePauw, have decided to change the print schedule from twice a week to once a week. While we used to publish a 12-page edition of The DePauw every Tuesday and Friday, we will now be publishing one 16-page issue every Wednesday. This switch comes for many reasons, the first one being the push for online content. We realize that our viewers read and share most of our content online at thedepauw.com. 

The traditional print schedule is also weighing down on our ability to adapt to the continuously changing online world of journalism, due to the hours of labor it takes to place and design pages, check every page meticulously for formatting errors and ensure that the issue makes it to the printing press. It would simply be too much work to push our online presence more while still publishing two issues full of content each week.

This decision was discussed with our advisor, Meg Kissinger, and the Media Fellows and Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media (PCCM) director, Jonathan Nichols-Pethick.

“This move represents the students’ commitment to providing readers with more timely coverage of campus and community news through their online presence. It also allows the print edition to be dedicated to more in depth coverage of stories and expanded coverage of important issues confronting campus and the Greencastle community,” Nichols-Pethick said.

Furthermore, we want people to be informed as soon as they can. If a story happens on a Thursday night, we need to get that up online as soon as we can. We live in a “News Now” world. If we want to be prepared for what a newsroom is like post-graduation, we need to make that shift now.

The DePauw will start to pop up more on social media as we make this digital push into the ever-evolving online world of journalism. For updates and links to stories that may not make it into the print edition, readers may “Like” and follow our Facebook Page, “The DePauw” and follow us on Instagram and Twitter @thedepauw.

For the final three weeks of the print schedule, we will be printing one 16-page issue every Wednesday until May 4. This change is only a trial. We would love your comments, questions, concerns and feedback about this change, so that next semester’s Editorial Board may decide if they believe this new schedule is a good fit for our campus and if it should be continued. For more content on news, features, sports and opinions visit our website TheDePauw.com.