Nell Gross
Editor-in-chief
ngross1@jccc.edu
Since 1978, The Campus Ledger has been the college’s source of student news. One year shy of our 40th anniversary, we will be eliminating the print edition of the paper and will be transitioning to an online-only news source. This was not an easy decision to make, but it has slowly begun to feel like the right one.
Nowadays, most people get their information and news off the internet. Whether it’s through social media or the news outlets themselves. The days of bustling newsstands and evening editions of papers is long gone and the digital age is upon us. In order to keep up with the multitudes of other outlets becoming more digitally oriented, it’s important for us to shift our focus and begin providing quality multimedia content on platforms that are more easily
Since its creation, The Ledger has covered topics ranging from major international affairs to routine Board of Trustees meetings, and even the occasional scandal. It has highlighted the diversity here at the college and provided students with an inside look at what goes on behind the scenes. The upcoming change will allow us to continue to provide coverage regarding these topics, while also allowing us to use different platforms to deliver them.
Here at The Ledger, we spent this semester trying to provide readers daily with unique online content while also maintaining the quality of the monthly print edition. However, with an ever-shrinking staff, this proved to be difficult. Despite the workload, the staff members of The Ledger staff have persevered and worked hard to keep up.
In this day and age, quality journalism is more important than ever. The change in platform does not mean we will be compromising our integrity or our ethics. Our new additional focus of timely online content will not interfere with The Ledger continuing to provide in-depth features and investigative pieces. In addition to our daily news updates, we hope to work with the other student media outlets, JCAV-TV and ECAV Radio to bring you multimedia packages as well.
This optimism about the future does not mean that the print edition of The Ledger will not be greatly missed. In my short time here, I’ve grown fond of the late production nights and the cathartic feeling of seeing a month of hard work finally come to life. But this change brings an entire new set of challenges and experiences that will better us as a publication and show how to better serve our audience.
So, we hope that you will stick with us while we make this transition. Input from readers letting us know what we can do to better serve the campus as a source of news will be vital in making this transition as effective as possible. In the meantime, we can’t thank our readers enough for the support The Ledger has been given over the years.
You can find us online at @campusledger on Twitter and on Facebook at facebook.com/thecampusledger, along with our website blogs.jccc.edu/campusledger.