Staff Ed: Blue & Gray Press staff reflects on 2017-18 academic year
2 min read
Lauren Brumfield | The Blue & Gray Press
By THE BLUE & GRAY PRESS EDITORIAL BOARD
Over this past year, the Blue & Gray Press staff has worked hard to produce high quality journalism. Our mission is to serve the University of Mary Washington and greater Fredericksburg community with timely and accurate news.
While we have made mistakes over the year, we have worked to correct our errors and address the criticisms of the paper. The purpose of a student newspaper is to have the room and security to learn and grow outside the classroom setting. While we strive to produce hard hitting articles, we are still a group of student editors and writers. We are learning the craft of how a professional newsroom runs and we extend an invitation to staff, faculty, administration and students to continue to help us develop high quality content.
This paper is for the community. We rely on our staff and community writers to provide articles covering all different aspects of campus. We want The Blue & Gray Press to be a platform for all students, so all students have the opportunity to write an article for the paper.
This year we have decreased our print circulation to 1,000 copies. This has helped us put more of a focus on our online presence. This year we have also put a focus on quality photographs in the paper. Last year “Blue & Gray TV” was introduced. We have not had the time to further develop the project, but next year we plan to make BGTV a focus.
We have also discussed the possibility of having a “Breaking News Blog” on the website. This is still just in the idea phase. The blog would cover daily news in the Fredericksburg and UMW community.
As our last issue for the year is coming up, we turn back to our motto “Campus news with student views.” Our staff consists of nine editors and around 50 staff writers. We know that we don’t stretch fully across the UMW community. We rely on the rest of the campus to help us be the best paper that we can be. Only with that support can we fully live up to our purpose and motto.
