The Daily Cardinal has seen and covered it all: turn-of-the-century celebrations, wars, assassinations, corruption, protests and back-to-back-to-back Rose Bowls. We’ve covered the news and brought it to you, our faithful readers. Throughout our dynamic history, The Daily Cardinal has been an independent source of news for our primary audience, University of Wisconsin-Madison students. At the Cardinal, our purpose is to present accurate, independent news relevant to students produced by students in a learning environment.
As an independent student newspaper, we have a responsibility to serve our readers well and to foster an educational environment for student journalists, advertising executives, marketing directors and business managers.
For these two broad reasons, The Daily Cardinal will be printing Monday through Thursday and producing exclusive, online-only content on Friday and throughout the weekend. The Thursday issue will evolve throughout the semester as a larger issue with space to produce feature stories, which will be available on stands all throughout the weekend.
Today’s issue marks an exciting step in our legacy as it is the first week we implement our new model. We hope you enjoy the historical feature story on Library Mall in addition to the other content in Thursday’s issue. Check our website throughout Friday and the weekend before we return to you in print on Monday.
We believe this change makes The Daily Cardinal a stronger newspaper and provides the greatest opportunities for Cardinal staff and readers.
It will not be a surprise for me to say the field of journalism is changing. We live in a digital age where news is broken first on Twitter and not a headline in the morning newspaper. The Daily Cardinal has served as a starting place for aspiring journalists and a host of other successful individuals in a number of career paths. We are students teaching students, passing down a legacy that began 121 years ago.
The Cardinal as a teaching institution and a collaborative learning environment is part of the newspaper’s identity I value the most. Learning to not only practice print and online journalism, but to also experiment with how the two work together in a constantly evolving digital environment is one of the most valuable skills to experiment with as a student journalist.
Throughout this past year, we have made great strides in creating a cohesive Cardinal product, which includes the print edition, online content, social media, video and photos. Our multimedia has grown and is continuing to form as a staple of our newsroom. The aesthetics of a webpage are just as important as a print page, and we are experimenting with online design.
But The Daily Cardinal is not just a real-life classroom for journalists. It is a training ground for business students, future ad managers and marketing directors. All media, even this independent student newspaper, are a business, and it is here that students can put to practice what they are learning in Grainger.
But because The Daily Cardinal is a business, our product is susceptible to the changing forces of the journalism field. The structure of newsrooms and publications is changing, and so is the way advertisers choose to interact with readers. Newspapers are a business, and this decision was also made in part by financial reasons and audience demand.
But more importantly, this decision was made because readers drive our work at The Daily Cardinal. You expect complete campus coverage, and we provide that every day. You expect an independent student newspaper to keep a check on the university and public officials, and we strive to do that. We aim to provide a newspaper catered to you as students.
For these reasons, we have decided to dedicate our time and resources to producing top-notch work in four print editions and constant online coverage. This new model also provides us with the opportunity to produce special issues with specialized content such as our upcoming “issue issues” dedicated to investigating under-reported topics important to the UW-Madison community, as well as our Readers’ Choice awards where you get to choose your favorite places around Madison.
The Daily Cardinal is an institution at UW-Madison and a place that has been home to students for generations. We have learned the meaning of camaraderie, friendship, dedication and professionalism. And we will continue to do so. While the Cardinal is changing, and will continue to evolve, it will always be a place that fosters excellent journalism. And that is something you can continue to count on.
Thoughts on the new printing model? Please send all your feedback to editor@dailycardinal.com.
