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On Aug. 23, www.mastersdegreeonline.com, a website that provides college accreditation statistics and rankings, published a list of the 100 best campus newspapers online nation-wide. The Pleiad ranked 65th overall and finished first among Michigan newspapers, beating out seven other Michigan college papers that made the list, including University of Michigan’s The Michigan Daily and Michigan State University’s State News.
While pitching, editing, and publishing the news is a part of each Pleiad editor’s job description, making the news happens, too. The Pleiad has won awards in non-deadline assignments, general excellence and news, feature and sports page design in Division II of the Michigan Press Association College Contest – all prior to becoming a entirely online publication in 2009.
This national ranking is positive feedback following our transition to online publishing, as well as the website re-design that was undertaken this spring and the first summer edition of The Pleiad in over 125 years. While placement criteria are not explicitly listed, Master Degree Online.com does suggest that the selected campus newspapers provide effective coverage of campus events.
Our readers expect full, unbiased coverage of news that matters, and that is what we will provide. With new staff positions and communication methods, our methods of reporting are ever-changing and flexible, but our consistency with the facts is unwavering.
The objective of our website re-design was to make navigation easier and provide an interactive platform for multimedia videos, podcasts, photography and articles to complement each other. Our rationale for summer publishing was to finish coverage of stories that we promised to report.
The Pleiad’s goal for fall 2010 is to keep the momentum going.
Pleiad student reporters will continue to provide coverage of Briton sporting events, meet with administration, and be present in the classrooms and community – but if we ever miss the mark, please bring it to our attention. Let us know via twitter, email (pleiad@albion.edu), facebook, or through openly commenting on our website.
View the entire list of the 100 best campus online newspapers at http://master-degree-online.com/100-best-campus-newspapers-online/.
Photo caption: Lisa Hoehn, Albion alumna and former Managing Editor, and MacKenzie Burger, Editor in Chief, take time to kick back while interviewing Marko DeSantis, Sugarcult lead guitarist, in spring 2010.
What’s the status of the Pleiad archives from the previous Pleiad website?
How large is the Fall 2010 Pleiad staff and who is it? There isn’t really a staff section…
Perhaps to be even more Web 2.0, the Campus Safety section could also be an embedded Twitter feed.
Brian,
Embedding the Campus safety section in the Twitter feed is a good idea. To answer your question on the size of the fall 2010 staff, we officially have nine staff members, but we are interviewing additional students who are interested in writing, editing, etc. The website design is still unfinished — but we are in the process of hiring a new web designer (who could look into your Twitter idea). If you scroll to the bottom of the front page you can see your masthead, which will be updated next week once hiring is finalized.
Last semester, we tried to begin the relocation process of articles from old Pleiad websites to our current one. However, articles on one main site had been corrupted, which did not even allow for text to be cut and pasted. I’ll keep trying, and perhaps IT can save the old online articles. Many of the archived articles are print-only, which poses another difficulty.
To be more clear on the Twitter idea, it wouldn’t have to be the Pleiad’s Twitter account. Campus Safety could have their own, which they update, with it being embedded here on the Pleiad website.
Even if some of the old issues are in PDF format, I still think linking to those issues is important.
But I find myself wondering what happened to all the InDesign files that you could just copy and paste the text directly from…