It’s been a strange few years, but it feels good to be back in print! We’ve been (impatiently) waiting to see The Shakerite on a printed page since May 2021, when we published our last print edition at the end of a hybrid school year. I’m proud to say that date has finally arrived.
The COVID-19 pandemic posed unique challenges for everyone. For us, it meant that learning to design and create pages to send to press — a process that typically involves huddling closely around a computer — had to be put aside. That caused us to lose valuable institutional knowledge, which we spent last year rebuilding while publishing exclusively online.
That’s enough looking at the past, though. We have exciting plans for the year ahead. We will publish four more print editions this year, one per quarter. The Shakerite is also once again a newsprint tabloid — not a magazine — for the first time since 2016.
Print allows us to publish unique art, photos and infographics, such as the map that appears later in this edition, or the schedule on the front cover. Neither of these features would be readable on a phone screen.
Returning to print doesn’t mean we are abandoning digital coverage. You should still look to shakerite.com for breaking news and extended coverage, and we are expanding our social media presence to new platforms and improving our strategy for using those platforms to better reach our readers.
Throughout our coverage this year, we will focus on educating our readers not just on the events we’re covering, but on what we do as journalists. The last decade has seen a massive erosion of trust in the media. Bad actors, “alternative facts” and social media echo chambers mean that people now see journalism as a black box of deception rather than a trusted source of information. Our goal this year is to nurture trust in the media through education and transparency.
As an open forum for student expression, we want to hear from you. If you disagree with an opinion we published, or know of an issue we should cover more, let us know! Submit a letter to the editor or ask about writing a guest column. We’re here to serve you.
A version of this editor’s note appears in print on page 2 of Volume 94, Issue 1, published Aug. 28, 2023.
