Newspaper Team Makes Big Changes
Fair Grove Newspaper students at work
October 5, 2017
The Eagle’s Eye News has been the Fair Grove High School source of news for many years. The stories are written and produced by the Journalism class offered at Fair Grove High School, the class also takes the adjoining pictures, and is partnered with the Digital Communications class to create weekly Friday news videos. Students, teachers, parents, and even members of the community use both of these resources to stay up to date on many school and community events. In past years the class has printed and sent out a hard-copy paper every other month of the school year, but this year the newspaper team is making changes. Joseph Florez, the Journalism class teacher, said, “The school will not be printing a paper this year, it is becoming less and less likely that our students who go into future news media professions will be printing an actual paper, and so much of our time and resources have been spent creating a printed paper, we would rather them learn in practice the writing side, the photo side, the editing side, etc”.
Not printing a paper has also made it easier on the students and allows for the articles to be published and read on the website right after they are turned in. Alex Brewer (12), Journalism class student, said, “There was so much work that went into printing out the paper and getting it around to all the students that it was just a hassle. Going to an online only paper means that the majority of people can access it whenever they want as most people have internet access or a phone on them.”
Another change that the class will be making is that each student has been asked to write one “fast” article sometime throughout the year, meaning after a big game or event a student will sit and write the article to be published the next morning. Florez stated, “We are trying to somewhat mimic what the Ozone would do, or any other professional media outlet.”
All of the articles will be available on the website, fairgrovenews.com, and many will be shared on social media, the news team has a Facebook and a Twitter account under the name Fair Grove News.
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Susan Frame • Oct 10, 2017 at 10:49 am
Initially, it certainly sounds logical. There is a lot to be said for immediate access. But….you are missing one of the biggest things the Eagle’s Eye did. It provided one of the ONLY points of access that reached the entire community of Fair Grove. Now….local news will ONLY be available to those with a cell phone glued to their hands. The printed paper reached ALL of the community, not just the young and technology connected. Now the rest of the community, the grandmothers, the elderly, the lonely, the poor. Those people who are NOT on the internet 24/7. They have been left behind and forgotten. I suggest that perhaps a quarterly paper mailed out to ALL of the community would still be benefitial, as a public service if nothing else. Perhaps the City of Fair Grove, Historical Society, Chamber of Commerce and others would be interested in participating. It would be a wonderful forum to get news to EVERYONE and keep the community connected!