When I joined The News two years ago I knew instantly I wanted to become Editor-in-Chief due to those around me who influenced and helped me fall in love with journalism.
This will be my third year at The News and I can tell you, my excitement has been building since I started planning in May.
To give you some context of my experience, I previously served as assistant photo editor my freshman year, photo editor my sophomore year, and then served as editor-in-chief over the summer.
From my time working here, I have had the opportunity of covering a wide variety of topics including a fatal car crash, Unofficial, a Valentine’s Day edition where I took boudoir-like photos, house fires, Roe v. Wade protests, last semester’s faculty strike, the Hindu holiday Holi, Miss Black EIU, a memorial service held for a student who took their own life, and much more.
There will be a few changes this semester and goals I hope to achieve as a staff.
One of the changes is shifting our focus to online content. In years past I feel we have devoted a heavy amount of attention to our print product and started to lose sight of daily storytelling.
As much as it saddens me to say, our print products are not picked up consistently enough to where we can think print first and online second.
Jumping off our focus, we are making a major push to utilize and re-brand our social media. As mentioned, our print product is not as popular as in years past, so we have to go where students are.
I have helped run our Instagram for the past year and a half, and am excited to say we have seen a noticeable spike in engagement compared to past semesters. I hope to get the re-brand launched as soon as possible but expect a delay.
Another new addition is our weekly audio and written newsletter released Friday morning. This is something I am excited about because not only are podcasts becoming quite popular but it allows us a new way to deliver content to you in around five minutes.
The newsletter will be a highlight of the week where the host will talk about five or six stories including updates about Eastern’s sports.
With these new changes, I have assembled a staff I have complete confidence in. Some are returning members from past semesters but most are new to The News. This excites me because not only are they going to be working for me but it brings in new coverage ideas.
Rob Le Cates can be reached at 581-2812 or at deneic@gmail.com.
