Posting links to Florida community college sites on this site gave me the opportunity to revisit sites that I first looked at when I was preparing my FCCPA convention session on “Is Online for You?” It seems all are posting print issues on a regular basis.
InMotion is now hosted on College Publisher and looks great and The Observer is using PDF files of its print version online with a link to breaking news for information between issues. Kudos to both for new initiatives.
But I’m wondering why more newspapers aren’t making the move to online. Only eight member newspapers are online.
And half of our community colleges don’t have newspapers. Maybe if they knew there were free or cheap alternatives to costly printing, they would start online news sites.
Going online means many new avenues of storytelling become available, from audio and video to photo galleries. Online means students can get current news quickly, not just once or twice a month. Online means readers can interact with writers, editors and other readers, not just through a letter to the editor, but through a discussion thread or a blog like this one.
I voiced my frustration recently to Brian Murley, co-creator of Innovation in College Media. Here was his reply, for all to use – Getting Online Today.
This site is built using WordPress. It’s very easy to use and I built it in less than an hour. The most time-consuming part was deciding what theme to use!
So what are you waiting for? What are your roadblocks to getting online?
