Chris Segal
Editor In Chief
The second week of the fall semester has almost passed and the staff of the Graphic worked diligently to produce another great publication. Hopefully the returning students, faculty and staff have noticed some of the changes on our pages as well as the good things we have kept.
Despite some of the cosmetic and editorial changes the mission of the Graphic remains — to operate an editorially independent weekly student newspaper for the greater Pepperdine community within a Christian worldview.
Students and faculty from all areas of campus have contributed to the Graphic since our original publication in 1937. As one of the longest-running student organizations at Pepperdine the staff of the Graphic cherishes our traditions, but we also continue to search for ways to improve.
Take a look at the Front Page and notice the new focus the staff is putting on our online product, graphic.pepperdine.edu. Instead of referring to inside sections the valuable space at the top of the page has been given to directing readers to our Web site.
Whenever the staff obtains important documents, photos or video we are making it our new goal to publish them online and then direct readers to the supplemental content in print. This is an effort to make the Graphic a more complete news source.
Students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents will also be given more options on how to obtain vital information generated by students.
The Bottom Line has also undergone a revitalization to direct readers to our best stories inside the print edition. The “Did You Know” feature remains as a fun trivia piece.
Another change to the News section is the local briefs on A2. In the past, one brief focused on an international story, one focused on a national story and the last one came from local news.
One change that was made throughout our pages was the handling of jump headlines. These are the stories that continue on another page. In order to signify the story is continuations from another page instead of a new story the jump headlines have a kicker that is bold and followed by a colon.
To enhance our publication we have also acquired a Sudoku puzzle in the Living section and a comic strip directed at college students for the Sports section. We will be publishing new puzzles every week and uploading the answers to the Web site.
The comic added to the Sports section “Girls and Sports” focuses on 20-something’s dating and watching sports. The cosmetic changes may seem small to most readers, and hopefully they will help our readers in their quest to gather Pepperdine-related content. The biggest changes that are going on behind the scenes at Student Publications are the culture shifts we are adopting.
Those changes are to expand our product with online content as well as a DVD yearbook.
Students, faculty and staff are vital at all levels of our production, to get involved in the Graphic, Currents Magazine or the new DVD Yearbook please send us an e-mail at graphic@pepperdine.edu. or give us a call up in the newsroom ext. 4311.
09-07-2006