The GHS newspaper staff recently created a new source for their content. They created the website gretnamedia.com. It is a brand new website for students to hear about all things GHS from GHS’s own journalism programs.
The website was made in conjunction with a company called SNO Sites. They are a company specifically made for scholastic journalism to help schools produce products by removing the base work of coding a website and going straight to uploading content.
“I mainly chose SNO Sites to host our journalism website because so many schools throughout the country use it, elementary through college level,” journalism instructor Mrs. Gretchen Baijnauth said. “Another reason why I like SNO is it gives opportunities to kind of have our website and its content compete at a different level than what we normally compete at. We are competing against all of the schools that are hosted and … if you get on the best of SNO page that means you’ve had a really good story or you’ve built a really strong website, and that is one of my goals for my students.”
In this day and age news sources are everywhere, especially with the growth in platforms like social media, websites and television. With technology at everyone’s fingertips, the website is a way to bridge the gap from print to online media.
“I think that print newspaper isn’t as widely received by the student body as I think a website would be,” journalism instructor Mrs. Gretchen Baijnauth said. “Their phones are in their hands constantly and the website could be more timely.”
However, the printed newspaper is not becoming a thing of the past. The staff will continue to print newspapers, just not as many. This is mainly due to the amount of content that they are able to produce, but the cost does factor in.
“It is a great way to present my student’s work to a wider audience, at a budget-friendly price,” Baijnauth said. “It allows us to save more money as a department because to host our website for a year costs the same amount of money as printing one issue of the newspaper per month.”
In addition to the newspaper staff, the other journalism programs are starting to contribute. The Gretna News Network already has videos and media on the website and are creating more. While The Vanguard and The Dragon staff members will begin to upload content in the upcoming months. This is in an effort to widen the range of coverage on the website.
“I’m so excited because it’s going to be awesome,” The Vanguard editor-in-chief, junior, Peyton Rewzuk said. “It’s going to get the word out about the journalism program. I think if reporters want to go into journalism in the future, everything is going digital, so it’s good that we now have a website.”
The website also allows for new things in the journalism programs. It is a new way for reporters to interact with outside people.
“Another thing that is nice about this website is we can crowdsource off of it for story ideas or interviews,” Baijnauth said. “There are opportunities for polls, so a reporter can do a poll about a story that they’ve written or a story that they are going to write, and then use that poll information in their story. And so that gives a little more “interactiveness”. We have a place where we can have a scrolling sports scoreboard, and then we also have places where we can post breaking news. So if there is an announcement like: ‘It’s a snow day’, we can throw that up on the website\; as we grow viewers it can be a place for kids to check.”
Overall, the new website is bringing change to the journalism program. It is a new outlet for students to get information and be more aware of what is happening in their school.