We’re picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off. The Aggie is back and ready to accompany you as you drink your CoHo coffee.
For The Aggie, the past couple of years have been tumultuous to say the least, with printing being reduced from four times a week to twice a week, and then to once, followed by a well-fought and largely welcomed attempt at instating a fee which would have financially stabilized the paper. This year, we’re starting off with an online publication and a staff driven enough to see the physical papers back on newsstands in time for our centennial. Through a news partnership, we hope to have our inky Aggie back in your hands by January. Until then, we’re optimizing our new dwelling online with new articles twice a week and a redesigned homepage coming soon.
Our editorial board is focused on releasing quality news and multimedia content as well as maintaining a lively website. Additionally, we plan on beginning an online classifieds section later in the year — a good first step to getting back on our feet.
Last year the difficult decision was made to eliminate editor stipends, and as expected, this model will continue into the start of this year. Despite this penny pinching, editors continue to exhibit the same motivation and devotion to this newspaper. Similar to the way many of The Aggie’s alumni credit their work in our newsroom for their post-collegiate successes, I like to credit my UC Davis experience to The Aggie.
Nearing the end of high school, I discovered that I was on the waitlist to UC Davis, with the outcome depending on a 200-word statement explaining why I should be admitted. My reason, oddly enough, was that I wanted to join the award-winning Aggie, which, to the admissions officer that admitted me, was a good enough reason. Seeing that there is no journalism program on campus, our staff recognizes what I learned early on: They need The Aggie as much as it needs them.
As is the case with many struggling college newspapers, we’ve had to wear multiple hats that differ from that of the traditional editor’s. Taking on the roles of contract negotiators, account managers and media strategists has become necessary in light of the variable direction of journalism, but we’re hopeful that in time we’ll be able to narrow our focus and think less like businesspeople and more like journalists again.
We invite you to take the trip down into the Freeborn Hall basement to pick up an application and see what we do.
Send questions, concerns or kind words to MUNA SADEK at editor@theaggie.org.
