TIFFANY FITZPATRICK
THE SIGNAL
This is the last regular* print edition of The Signal. Beginning next fall, we will publish with a digital-mostly strategy, only distributing via newsprint for special editions.
The change is bittersweet, which, oddly, isn’t a feeling I’m used to yet, although it’s the same feeling that comes with talk of downward expansion. It’s an early nostalgia for what is mixed with excitement, anticipation and a little bit of trepidation for what will be and what will no longer be.
Newspapers have been an integral part in American history. They’ve played myriad roles – from watchdog to town gossip – and they’ve documented every monumental change they could along the way.
However, there have only been a few instances when newspapers were a significant part of the change they were charged with documenting, which is the situation we find ourselves in now. We’re not alone – our big company counterparts are facing similar challenges on a much larger scale. Admittedly, it is an interesting place to be because, as a rule, newspapers and news-people do their very best to never be the news.
It is something that is simultaneously exciting and terrifying.
It is exciting because we have a unique opportunity to rewrite the rules and to write them in a way that allows us to have big goals and high expectations. Nobody can tell us that the things we want to do have failed in the past or that the chance of success is too slim. We’re in uncharted territory.
It’s terrifying for exactly the same reasons.
With this in mind, I decided to break the rules and, for just a moment, make it personal.
In the space below, we’ve attempted to list the entire print staff – from the first issue of a nameless student newspaper in 1975 through decades as the UHCLidian and then The Signal. This list was compiled based on our own archives and the university archives in Neumann Library.
From a purely selfish standpoint, there’s a lot of sadness to this change. The validation and pride that comes along with seeing our names in print on the newspaper is one that’s hard to imitate.
It’s like the first box of business cards at a new job – the first validation of an unsure situation. It doesn’t matter if you’ve done it before or that you’ll possibly do it again, there’s something special about the way the ink spells out your name on that first printing, all shiny and official and important looking.
This newspaper has been the first box of business cards for 42 volumes of staff members. In a way, it has been the same for the university itself and for the numerous students, faculty, staff and administrators who have devoted pieces of themselves to the university.
Although we’re technically only moving to a different platform, the loss of the tangible effects of print is noticeable, if only for the little reasons.
So, it tugs on my emotions to know that I will be the last editor to routinely mail out copies of each issue in smudgy envelopes that are stained by the ink on my hands – evidence of the work we put into the product.
However nostalgic I already am, though, the transition itself is not a negative one. It isn’t a last-ditch effort to survive. Our change is motivated by growth rather than struggle, and that is something we are proud of.
Focusing our energies on digital platforms will allow us to be better. We will have the chance to cover more stories and the opportunity to find new ways to tell those stories. We can be timelier and produce more variety.
We will have the chance to be the voice of this community in ways that we haven’t been able to be in the past.
For a long time, we have been a small, biweekly newspaper at a small, upper-level university and that has, in some ways, limited what we can do. The most noticeable effect is that our staff is typically also small – too small to split our focus into two products.
As a result, our online presence has been mostly the result of our print product and efforts to improve the community feel of our website and social media presence haven’t succeeded as well as they could.
Ultimately, we know we can do better if we don’t do both.
The Signal isn’t disappearing. We will actually publish more content with more frequency than we’ve been able to before.
If we do it well, it will be less tangible but much, much louder.
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