By Joe English

With the new Eagles Media Center website up and running, questions regarding the future of the Footprint school newspaper have arisen.  Will the new website replace the 30-years-printing newspaper, or will the Footprint simply join the online edition?  I sat down with the current editor of the school newspaper, Karenna Martin, to find out.

Joe)     Is the Footprint officially going online next year?

Karenna)        Well we’re not sure if were going to go totally online, or if we’re going to continue having some of the articles online and then release all of the articles together at the end of the month in the traditional Footprint format.  We still have to work out what our final decision is going to be.

 J)         What made you decide that it was time to transition from a paper format to an online format after nearly 30 years of publishing?

K)        We’re in this internet age and evolving into a completely online world.  Kids go home after school and immediately check their Facebook or their email, and I think that we can be another thing that they go and check right away.  We’re hoping that instead of just checking Facebook first, they’ll check eaglesmediacenter.com to scan the news. Hopefully our new site can be a quick and easy way to stay informed.

J)         What sort of things are you going to be able to have online that you wouldn’t normally have in a paper format?

K)        The biggest thing is that we can finally write articles and have them posted immediately, instead of having to wait a month.  This will mean more updated sports and news stories because as an online newspaper, we can get them right when they happen… That’s a really important thing.

And just making the site more user friendly is a big thing, as well as having a lot more pictures.  Only being able to use a few black and white pictures in the paper format was really restrictive, and we’re hoping to improve that by getting an official photography position for the online edition.

J)         How does the online Footprint transition play into the overarching Eagles Media Center vision?

K)        Well right now, the Eagles Media Center site has all three branches together in one (GTV, Footprint, and ScoresUp), and right now we’re still figuring out if we’re going to be getting our own site or if we’re going to stay on eaglesmediacenter.com.  Everything is still kind of in the infant stages.  But as we keep moving forward and drawing in new members, we can keep expanding the online edition and EMC as a whole, while hopefully figuring out our direction more.

J)         Lastly, what is your personal goal, as Editor of the Footprint, before you leave for college?

 K)        I want to get people comfortable with the new site.  I think the biggest thing is awareness. I’m not sure a lot of people know that we actually have the site up and running that it’s updated daily.  I think that’s the biggest thing—getting people to realize that there is a website, what EMC really is, and what the vision is.  Just getting people to read the site daily is definitely going to be a challenge, but its something that’s doable.

After interviewing Karenna, it became apparent that the Footprint is playing an integral role in developing and promoting the new website.  In a bid to capture the attention of the internet-based generation, the school’s most prominent news sources are working together to create a single media outlet that is online, up to date, and easy to access: www.eaglesmediacenter.com.