The Hewitt Times

Last night, HT sci/tech editor, Susannah Meyer, and I attended our first General Assembly workshop, one titled, “Content Strategy: How to Get Grassroots Growth.”

It was interesting.

^ A phrase I now know is the worst way to introduce–or rather, teasingly summarize–something. According to Chris Dannen, Technology Editor of FastCompany Magazine, it is best to present a message more along the lines of, “Check this out–it’s still going on; it’s not too late to participate (this isn’t me bragging about last week’s party-of-the-year that the flu prevented you from attending).”

Besides that, there is already one major flaw with this article–you still have no idea what it’s about or why I’m writing it. Neither do I.

And that’s exactly the point. I have my own reasons for loving the Hewitt Times; those who have heard me talk about it know that this language is not too strong at all. But after attending last night’s workshop and today’s speech by Fox News anchor Jenna Lee, I have furthered my consideration of journalism’s role in our community–the Hewitt community, that is (I happily feel the need to specify now that [according to our site’s Google Analytics report] our readership extends all the way from NY to Kazakhstan–Ok, we had one very much appreciated Kazakh visitor…but still).

Anyway, before I run out of bracket styles to accommodate my potentially endless tangents, what’s the role of student-produced news content at Hewitt?

An implicit question here asks which content has the largest relative role–typically synonymous with, “Which content yields the largest audience?”

For our newspaper at least, the answer tends to be anything intended for purely entertainment purposes–Who wore it best?, The Ed-Vice Column, Saucy Sunday…I’m wary of linking these pages to the same tab because I know it’s unlikely that one would return here if that were to be the case.

If we set our goal to be “maximize readership,” The Hewitt Times would produce a continuous flow of funny faculty photos and quirky remarks from the wittiest members of our staff. Mesmerized by the Mount Everests of our site traffic graphs, it’s hard not to transform The Hewitt Times into a TMZ.

I’ll mention what TMZ stands for because I just found out, I think it’s interesting, and I came up with a way to loosely relate it to my point in order to justify bringing it up. Thirty-mile zone: the area within a 30-mile radius from the intersection of LA’s West Beverly Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard, the area that delineates the heart of America’s entertainment industry. Due to a very centralized system that worked kind of like horizontal integration, it was difficult to film outside of the zone, on location. Filmmakers could access all necessary production tools within the TMZ. The one thing they lacked was authenticity. It’s not that they were purposefully disingenuous; they just did what made sense economically. Better for the production, worse for the product.

Now to the loosely-related point: the benefit of being a “micro” newspaper is that our production goals and product quality are one and the same. Our duty is not to make a profit (a term I’m using metaphorically here to represent readership); our intention is–in the simplest possible terms–to be a good newspaper.

The Hewitt Times’ mission relates–primarily–to inspiring journalistic interest within our community. Ironically, this suggests that the focus shifts from the content itself and veers toward the acts of writing and procuring reliable, newsworthy information.

We [I] get [overly] excited when random people read the newspaper, not because that’s the goal, but because that’s a product of the goal–proof that our stuff is worth reading, our advice is worth taking (or at least indulging in).

It is totally far-fetched to say that’s the only reason we like to hear positive feedback though. A favorite (among many) quotation of mine is P.T. Barnum‘s, “Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.” It’s true–but not only with regard to audience. That really doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it? What I mean to say is that a newspaper’s popularity remarkably encourages increased reporting quality, which in turn leads to increased popularity. It’s a classic case of positive reinforcement, for all the Biologeeks out there–a positive feedback loop. The symptom (reader quantity) is necessary in order to maintain the disease (writer quality). One can just hope that the disease will go ‘viral.’

New HT mission statement?: Expand readership while strengthening content quality and maintaining integrity toward the newspaper’s holistic, educational standing (i.e. including  no more than around e E!-esque articles per week). Create headlines that are entertaining but not for the sole purpose of attracting people to the article (…whoops…?). Reconcile entertainment and fact (not like they’re on two opposite ends of the spectrum…our real lives actually conjure the most entertaining stories of all). Spice up the prosaic.

I dare all reporters to include that in the signatures of their emails.

I raise my Bistro, fruit-infused water to a new year of Hewitt journalism and the talent that it is meant to inspire. As cheesy as it is…I’ve quoted worse.

P.S. I’m fully aware that early-mid February is most likely past the “it’s a new year” deadline.

I guess I’m mostly just nostalgic about my final year as a Hewitt Times staff member, and anyone who has ever visited a site with a Tumblr domain knows that nostalgia often stimulates (moderately) indiscriminate (unmoderated) discourse.

….What?

Translation of my erratic thoughts: I’m going to miss the newspaper, so, inspired by the stream of consciousness technique in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (shout-out to Dr. Burgess’ AP English’s class!), I’m reflecting on the newspaper in every way that I can, at the brink of its burgeoning fame (I can sense it That’s-So-Raven-style).

…

So now after writing this post…I’ve decided that it may make more sense if I even more blatantly acknowledge how random (and perhaps kind of non-cohesive) it really is. Welcome to the first post of a column that just wouldn’t be ‘me’ enough if the title didn’t include some sort of word play.