Campus newspaper prototype I pitched to my university responding to a call for students to suggest ways to build "IE citizenship".
How will it work?
Like most campus newspapers, the IE Gazette is a monthly student-run publication available on campus and online that covers local, school-related, and international news that serves as a dynamic hub of active student citizenship. It’s where important community discussions can take place in a public forum, and it’s also where students can hone the managerial, communications, and design skills they came here to learn.
Traditionally, student-run publications also serve as campus “watchdogs” that aren’t afraid to expose problems that the university’s stakeholders want to see addressed. This is a crucial opportunity for many students to transform from passersby into true IE and HST citizens.
To run an organization like this one, we need a few positions. First, an Editor-in-Chief to steer the ship, talk to stakeholders and delegate tasks. Each section needs a managing editor: Sports Editor, News Editor, Classifieds Editor, etc. It needs a Layout Designer who can work with a modular template to page out the newspaper each month. The publication also requires financial stewardship by a Treasurer to properly manage everything from advertising sales and revenues to printing costs.
A solution to the staffing issue could be to found the IE Newspaper Club and assign staff roles to a core group of dedicated volunteers, who could in turn coordinate crowdsourcing content.
Distribution notes:
We want to do a limited first run and see what happens in terms of audience engagement. Printing 400 copies on our inaugural run means we can put 100 of them at MM4, MM31 and Velazquez 130 each, and distribute the rest across other buildings and cafes around campus.
Students will be eager to pick up this new student-run publication and will hopefully find the paper engaging enough to read the next issue, and hopefully participate themselves. As interest increases so can the number of copies in each edition, and copies could make their way to more buildings and certainly as far as the Segovia campus. While the IE Gazette is an HST-based publication, we want its readership to extend across IE and beyond.
Web notes:
The IE Gazette will also be available online. IE has a large community of developers, coders and web designers who can help us set up a fantastic news site where content can be archived on an ongoing basis.
Printing notes:
Format to A3+ for digital printing
Risograph: Japanese technique similar to lithography but designed for digital printing (would work with any printing machine at ie)
