Before completing the first issue, the JagWire staff had already had to adjust to changes and overcome challenges that come with completely reformatting a newspaper. As you may have noticed, we’ve made a few improvements to the JagWire, the biggest being that we’ve replaced our squarish page size you’ve seen for the past several years with a 7 inch by 9 1/2 inch format. We also have color on every page and are planning to reach 32 pages eventually — eight more than we’ve had in the past.

Besides those significant differences, we’ve also made small ones – we changed our fonts, added a few standing pages here and there (see our new table of contents and staff listing on pages 2-3 and “Overtime” on page 20) and worked on a general redesign.

The differences you’ll see in the JagWire this year, however, will come as a result of changes in how we work behind the scenes. To make the JagWire informative and contemporary, we’ve come up with some goals fothe year.

One of our biggest goals is to use the new size and format to our advantage, making the paper reader friendly and modernized. A convenience of having a format that closely resembles a magazine is that we’re able to present more in-depth coverage. With a smaller page, we are able to have longer issues — that means dedicating multiple pages to several stories throughout the issue. Instead of putting everything on one page, we have space to be more creative with our designs. Some pages will even be solely dedicated to introducing a story, including a title and picture or graphic.

In addition to focusing on in-depth coverage, we also want to broaden our knowledge on programs that create graphics and computer artwork so we can cover topics in different mediums. With this knowledge, we can make pages that tell stories through infographics in order to report in a visually-appealing, easy-to-read way.

While most of our planned improvements pertain to changes the JagWire staff will make behind the scenes, we also want the student body to assist us in making the JagWire even better. Our opinions pages in the past have been composed of a staff editorial (such as this) and opinion pieces written by staff members. This year, we encourage youw to utilize the paper as a forum in which you can share your opinions with your peers. By promoting letters to the editor, we hope to provide more reader participation and interaction.

Even though we’re changing the overall look of the JagWire, we want to continue using our voice as power for change. You can expect the JagWire staff to provide you with accurate, objective and credible information.