On our campus and across the nation, the way we communicate with each other is constantly changing. And through all of those changes, the role of the Iowa State Daily has remained to provide our community members with the information they want and need to make educated decisions. But, without adaptation to new forms of communication, we cannot do our job justice.

This mindset has been at the forefront of how we rethink the best ways we can interact with our community. This year, you’ll see many changes and new initiatives at the Daily to address that. Here are a few of the key highlights.

New and improved digital platforms

We continue to strive for a digital-first mindset as we create content and tell the stories of our community. We’ve invested in tools to enhance our three Facebook Live shows, email newsletter and website. Like never before, we’ll be putting an emphasis on videos and photos to better tell the stories of the community.

Revolutionized print product

While the majority of our audience consumes our content online, our print edition still remains to be one of our most important platforms. We recognize that the type of content that makes sense for print, which has a much longer shelf life than the digital space, has to be different than what we have on our website. So, over the summer, our staff worked to vastly redesign our paper to better fit the feedback we’ve received from our readers during the last few years.

The new design includes three main changes: size, style and type of content. Our new size is meant to better accommodate where readers typically look at the paper on campus. Our new style is meant to be more visually appealing and emphasize photos and graphics. Our new type of content will include analysis, depth and data. We invite your feedback as we pursue our revolutionized print edition.

Renewed focus on engaging the community

During the last three years, we’ve focused efforts on finding new ways to engage with the community through public forums, topical magazines and speaking engagements. This year we’ll continue these efforts and add a few new initiatives to the fold.

This September, we will launch our Voices website, which is an initiative to facilitate conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion at Iowa State. You’ll find a personality quiz, narrative profiles and a place to add your voice and perspectives to the mix. We hope that you’ll get involved.

This fall, we are also extending our Iowa State Way brand — which is our basketball magazine from the past three years — to include a brand new football magazine. Be sure to check out the stats and stories from behind the scenes.

Depth reporting

We are challenging ourselves to do more analysis, in-depth and solutions-oriented work this semester. We are launching a depth reporting team to dig into major issues affecting the Iowa State community. Have any ideas for us? Email [email protected].

All of these efforts are to help provide you with better content to educate you, expose you to new perspectives and give you a voice. We hope that the Daily is an important part of your involvement in the Iowa State community — and if it isn’t, tell us what we can do better.

You can find the Daily in print on campus, at iowastatedaily.com, on social media and in various events during the year. Don’t be afraid to interact with us — I promise we’re always looking for suggestions and feedback. You are welcome to email me personally ([email protected]) or stop by to 2420 Lincoln Way, Suite 205, and I’ll show you around.

With regards,

Emily Barske

Editor in Chief