With the year 1957 came the beginning of Stony Brook University and the Sucolian. The student paper, soon renamed ‘The Statesman,’ has lasted all 50 years, transforming from a small student organization to the only incorporated student paper on campus.
This year, our 50th year of production, we are ready to begin another renaissance. We have written this message because we feel it necessary to inform our readers the changes that lie ahead.
Changes… where do we start? They’re happening right now. Changes for the better, changes that will strengthen the Statesman moving ahead in the coming weeks, months, years.
Our new website should be up and running by the time this issue hits the stands. And with our new website comes new podcasts, to be launched on a rolling basis. First, basic news summaries, appropriately titled ‘Statesminutes,’ will provide our listeners with a very brief rundown of the content in the latest issue from the news, A&E, and opinion sections of the print edition. Following those podcasts, in subsequent months, will come the more elaborate features with music, photos, videos, and unique programming straight from the minds of the Statesman’s editors and writers.
Starting next week will be our blogs, sites with specific designations expanding on the content in the print edition. We will have a political blog, a sports blog, an editors’ blog, a Newsroom blog; all providing for limitless opportunities to express what we can’t in the paper.
The biggest changes are going to be seen next semester. Our 50th Anniversary celebration will serve as a launching pad for some of our most exciting features. Videos will be incorporated into the new website as this semester comes to a close, but the Statesman will officially begin to film exclusive content starting in the spring. By then, we will have already made significant strides online, and our print edition will be expanding simultaneously. Also in the spring will be the launch of our new features and literary magazine, a compilation of in-depth reporting by students, fiction writing from various members of the Stony Brook community and contributions from some big names in the world of journalism.
The last part of our extreme makeover will be the print edition itself. For all 50 years, we have operated in the tabloid format, opting for the smaller sized paper. Starting in the Fall 2008 semester, we hope to begin production with the larger broadsheet format. We feel it will improve the overall aesthetics of the paper, and will be the final exclamation point of our first 50 years as well as the start of the next 50 years of reporting on campus.
All of these changes will take some time to perfect. We make no claims at excellence for the first few weeks with our new features. However, we feel confident that, with the right amount of time and effort, our changes will create a lasting impression upon the paper, the campus, and ultimately the students of Stony Brook University.