The Daily Wildcat has always embraced change. We were an early adopter of digital news, creating a responsive and up-to-date website and a mobile application for ease of use. We took a risk in creating our immensely popular Wildcat Weekend editions with edgy entertainment content and robust designs. These past changes allowed us to better serve the UA and Tucson’s communities. Though change is never easy, we are doing it again and in a big way.
Ninety percent of you reading about this are on your computers, smartphones and tablets. You are part of a technologically savvy community that consumes news throughout the day, every day. It is time for us to stop treating our readers like they have not changed in the last 15 years. So how do we fix this?
Digital
We already started making changes this summer. Internally, we have changed our structure to place digital news production at the forefront of our operation. Digital editors work seven days a week to make sure dailywildcat.com, our mobile app and you, the reader, are kept up-to-date the moment news breaks.
We are partnering with UATV, Arizona’s student television station to provide more student-produced content for you. You will be able to find their videos on dailywildcat.com starting in September.
You will see stories released throughout the day as they happen, more video and slideshows, the introduction of interactive web elements and much more. Check in with dailywildcat.com throughout the day for the latest information.
Our writers will be given the opportunity to find their voice and write about what interests them on our new blog section. This will help us cover non-traditional news outside of campus that we did not have room to cover before.
You can expect more engagement from us through social media. We will be tweeting, posting and, for the first time, snapping throughout the day. We’ll be more interactive as well. Reach out to us any time.
These changes will have come into effect before or with the Oct. 1 launch of our new version of dailywildcat.com and mobile app.
We have been very lucky to have a community that values our print papers. Not many other college publications can say the same. Through research we have learned that, though the majority of our readers are accessing our content via web or mobile, a large number still reach for a Daily Wildcat to catch up on university news.
For you, our print edition readers, we have some updates as well. We are reinvesting in our print product by being more selective with what content makes it into the paper. While online you will see our traditional campus coverage, our print product will be refined and focused on giving you the best stories we tell. There are more than two sides to every story, and we want to do a better job of finding them.
We have doubled the size of our investigative desk by adding a second editor to focus on long-form features of socio-political issues facing the world today. Look forward to seeing more exciting content and stories about the most pressing problems of the day.
You will see better designed and easier to read papers with more interactive ways for sharing stories. There will be more photos, more illustrations and more graphics to give context and supplemental information.
We are also reducing our print schedule from five days to three days a week. Not because we can’t afford it, but to re-invest our efforts those days to making bigger papers with better stories. Our publications will be refined to better meet your expectations. You can look forward to more special editions and sections throughout the year like our Arizona Football guide.
We are excited for all the possibilities these changes will bring and we are receptive to the future challenges. It is time we face the changing news environment and our changing readership’s preferences. We will be a better news organization for you, our community, not because we have to, but because we want to. We hope you are as excited as we are.
It is my pleasure to introduce you to the new Daily Wildcat.
