Accurate. Relevant. Well-written. Interesting. Informative. Accessible.
These adjectives form the foundation for a new Daily Beacon, a paper that connects with our audience across all platforms, from our daily print publication to our social media platforms to our website. These six words are both an homage to the Daily Beacon’s past and the groundwork for its future, a future that demanded we break from a 50-year tradition and change the logo and format of our paper.
Our new horizontal format is easier to carry and read in class. It’s also thicker—packed with more of the great content we bring you every day.
And when we decided to reinvent our image, we also chose to renew our commitment to six key values:
Accurate: First and foremost, we aim to be factually correct in every story, photo and graphic that we publish. Our credibility is vital to our impact, and when we do make a mistake, we’ll let you know.
Informative: We are and strive to be the definitive resource for campus news. This means quality of reporting and interviewing, as well as quality of ideas. We want students to feel more in touch with campus and community issues than they were before they picked up our paper.
Relevant: We want to make a publication worth clicking on and picking up. This plays into every aspect of our publication, from design to font style to the articles we run. If someone looks at The Daily Beacon, we want them to see a reflection of themselves: what they care about and what is important for them to know. We want to be the voice of and for students.
Well-written: We must be well-written or else what we’re saying gets lost. From an audience standpoint, we don’t want to waste anyone’s time.
Interesting: If we don’t want to read our product, neither will anyone else. This means a continued push to providing compelling, challenging and engaging content for our diverse audience.
Accessible: We are students at UT. We are coming from the same standpoint as our community, and we want you to feel like you can submit your questions and concerns to us and they will be addressed. Your voice is worth being heard.
Each day, The Daily Beacon staff works countless hours to bring you stories about your campus and community. Sometimes that takes the form of bowl game coverage or Clarence Brown Theatre play reviews. Sometimes it’s SGA updates or opinion pieces from students about issues that affect us all, like racism and sexual assault.
Whatever it is, rest assured it was brainstormed, reported, written, edited, photographed and designed with you in mind. What we do exists because of all the awesome things students, teachers and faculty create and do on this campus.
Today marks a historic moment not only for this paper and its staff, but for you, our readers. We hope you love reading the new Daily Beacon as much as we loved putting it together.
Claire Dodson is the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beacon. She can be reached at [email protected]. Let us know what you think on Facebook or Twitter at @UTKDailyBeacon.
