Four years ago, Barack Obama promised “change” and “hope” to a country mostly discouraged after eight years of angst and frustration directed at Capitol Hill. Since Jan. 20, 2009, there’s been more frustration and angst directed toward Capitol Hill, this time due to the lack of change promised and diminished hopes in increasingly hard times.

Last week in Chicago, President Obama told supporters to “stick with him” into 2012 and into the next four years, if those supporters help him get re-elected in November. He asked his supporters to continue working hard for change, urged them to not give up in pursuit of that change and promised if that were the case, change would come, change they “believe in.”

Even if you do support President Obama — and his approval rating is lower than George W. Bush’s in January of his re-election year — belief can be hard. Especially when things aren’t going well, belief and faith seem like wasted efforts.

The newspaper industry — and the news industry in general, for that matter — is also in need of hope and change. Every month, it seems there is a new round of layoffs, furlough and consolidation at news corporations nationwide. Everyone is doing their damnedest to innovate, to come up with the “next big thing” in publishing.

In the mid- to late ’90s, that was the Web. News organizations slowly realized that the Web would allow them to reach a broader audience quicker and with tools previously only available to broadcast TV and radio storytellers. In the early 2000s, it was on mobile devices and on social networks with Twitter, Facebook and myriad apps for whatever smart device American consumers were carrying.

The Iowa State Daily has been right there through all of that, trying to keep up with the world as it flies into the coming decades, trying to adapt as quickly as the technology around it.

As media companies and news organizations seek for the change that will keep them relevant, the Daily also continues to look for ways to stay relevant by having a presence on all your devices and, hopefully, for all of your campus needs into 2012 and beyond.

That’s what the Daily’s tablet edition represents: Our next foray into the future, trying to stay ahead of the change threatening to leave us all behind and our commitment to deliver entertaining and informative stories to you in any way we can find.

The number of tablet devices found in hospitals, offices and schools is increasing at an alarming rate. 46 percent of 1,555 Americans polled by Poll Position believe tablet devices will make laptops the new VHS or cassette tape. Journalism.org reported in October that 11 percent of Americans owned a tablet device.

While ownership numbers aren’t astonishing, the upward trend in those numbers since the release of the first iPad in April of 2010 has been rising. Tablet devices appear to be the future, and the Daily thinks tablet publishing is too.

There are some truly amazing things that can be done through tablet publishing. Like the Web, stories can be told with words, photos and videos all in one; but like print, those things can be packaged in one beautiful presentation that’s informative, entertaining and easy to read.

In the first two issues, you will find big, beautiful photos, video packages and photo slideshows along with stories written by Daily writers. Both issues will be available for free download through iTunes or the Android market. In future issues, you can look for things such as interactive graphics and panoramic and zoomable, 360-degree photos that are much more difficult to execute on the Web.

The Daily, like President Obama, still believes there is hope for and good in what we do and have to offer the community, and we’re proud and excited to be able to bring you the news and stories about Iowa State students, faculty and staff to your tablet devices. The Daily, like President Obama, believes in this new means of telling your stories, and we hope you will too.

We’re the first college newspaper that we know of to be doing a tablet edition like this one. We’re blazing a trail, as it were, to the promised land of new media and increased revenue.

We’re new to this, and we’re learning while we go; things will be rocky at times. But we’ll get it figured out.

Stick with us.

Because we’re going to keep fighting and pushing to deliver your news and stories to you in whatever ways suit you best.

Give us a chance. We think you’ll like what you see.