Internet news

We’re stopping the presses. Yes, starting next year, the Pleiad is going to be published exclusively online.

Not only will there be many features that the print version of the Pleiad simply can’t provide, such as video and audio clips, but we will also be able to get news out more than once a week.

What does that mean for you? It means that you’re going to get your news a lot faster–as it is right now, we start writing the articles over a week before they hit the page. Next year, you’ll likely see stories in less than half that time.

Having the paper online is a great opportunity for your voice to be heard as well. And we want to hear it. Every story has a comment feature enabled, allowing you to let us know what you think about a story as soon as you read it.

Instead of the old process of submitting a letter to the editor regarding an article, waiting over a week for it to be published, and then potentially never hearing about how people took what you had to say, commenting on a story is almost immediately visible below the story itself and open to counter-comments or agreement from others.

Now, before you start grumbling that this is just the latest in the college’s attempts to trim the budget, you need to know that this was our idea. Last summer the Web site was redesigned. Shortly after we returned to campus after winter break this semester, we established our own domain name and over the course of the past few months, we’ve laid the groundwork for the paper’s transition to an online-only media.

The decision to publish exclusively online was made because the journalism industry is rapidly changing and moving towards the Web. We as a staff felt that we needed to move with the times by revamping the Pleiad. By focusing our efforts on the Web site, we can bring you better content while honing our own skills for what we’ll really need in the real world after graduation.

You don’t have to wait until next year to see the new site. If you’ve been paying close attention, we’ve been publishing in-house ads to direct more traffic to the site. We won’t get sick of saying it, so don’t worry, here it is: check out the updated Web site at www.albionpleiad.com and let us know what you think.

In short, we know it won’t be quite the same but we assure you, the Pleiad will be much more efficient and interactive next year. It may take some getting used to, but in the end, it will be worth it. Follow us on Twitter @PleiadOnline, and enjoy the new Pleiad experience.