You won’t need me to tell you what an unprecedented year this has been, and like most organisations, the college newspaper has had to adapt to ensure its survival. In a typical year we would meet every other week to share ideas over lunch and help each other with our articles. We’d take part in educational trips to see how journalists work at the BBC news studios in Manchester, the Manchester University student newspaper and Platform media studios in Leeds. Sadly, none of this could happen this year but it’s been fantastic to see that enthusiasm for the paper has not waned. In fact, our numbers have increased to over 40 students and production rates have never been higher!
At the beginning of this academic year we moved all operations online and our journalists now receive personal encouragement and feedback via email to help them choose a topic, develop a suitable angle and write an effective article. We use a program called issuu to publish articles on the college website and our online newspaper is published once a term. We are particularly excited about forming a link with the Leeds University student newspaper, The Gryphon, and greatly look forward to taking part in a series of online coaching sessions run by the paper’s chief editor, Safi Bugel, towards the beginning of next year.
I am so proud of our first online edition. Our journalists have chosen a diverse and fascinating range of topics including the America-China trade war, call-out culture, the impact of Covid on Leeds Heritage Theatres, the link between social media and teenage mental health problems, the BLM protests, advice about starting sixth form college and many more. They have carefully researched their stories to ensure their opinion articles are based on sound evidence (no fake news here!) but, remember, they are still the opinions of our journalists. If you would like to respond to any of these articles with your own views, or if this publication has inspired you to have a go at writing an article on a different topic, please come and join the team by emailing me at s1900330@ndonline.ac.uk.
I hope you enjoy our first edition.
E Brownbill
Website By Rejuvenate Digital