A note from the 134th Managing Board

With today’s issue, The Daily Princetonian enters its 134th year under new leadership. At the start of each new managing board, your editors promise clear and compelling journalism — a paper that sparks dialogue on campus by presenting you with all facets of the issues most important to Princetonians. Frankly, we think that should go without saying. This year, we will strive to live up to the highest journalistic standards, just as our predecessors have. We couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

But, here’s what we’ve begun to realize: The very basic standards of journalism — those which have governed us for more than a century — have shifted. Though the 11 years of online ‘Prince’ publication represent a mere fraction of our paper’s history, they have proven absolutely essential in shaping our goals for the year.

Good journalism used to be just words and photographs on newsprint. That’s simply not true anymore. It is now our responsibility to provide you with the complete package of a story through photo slideshows, video clips, audio presentations, blog content, crisp graphics and other online multimedia.

Online publication provides unlimited space and endless content possibilities. For us, it’s an opportunity and a challenge — exciting, but sometimes overwhelming, too. It can be easy to use the paper version as a crutch since it imposes limits on word counts, photographs and interactive media. This year, our aim is to push ourselves beyond print more aggressively than we ever have in the past — and to do so in a way that will allow us to continue focusing on the quality of our existing content.

We’re extremely proud of our predecessors’ major accomplishments which have, in recent years, included switching to broadsheet printing, making the paper free of charge and — How could we forget? — redesigning our website. And now, it’s our turn to build upon their work by adding another level to what we already do.

For the first time in ‘Prince’ history, our board has editors solely devoted to multimedia content. Our blogs editor, too, will certainly have his hands full as we work to improve and expand our use of The Prox and relaunch the Street blog — Intersections — on Thursday.

By thinking about multimedia in everything that we do, we’ll be able to significantly expand the content we offer. Instead of only publishing basketball recaps the day after games, we’re working on a live blog where you’ll be able to follow players on the court; next time we interview a Public Safety official about a string of burglaries on campus, we want you to see and hear his responses from any computer screen on campus, not just read what he says; and if you’re looking for news and commentary throughout the day, we hope you’ll come to the Prox or Intersections.

There’s something special about a printed newspaper. But, in this period of change, we’re not afraid of making some bold choices, and we invite you to explore our website and offer us your ideas and feedback.

Next time you’re sitting at lunch reading the ‘Prince,’ don’t stop at what’s in print. Take out your laptop and point your browser to dailyprincetonian.com. Especially this year, you never know what you’ll find.