In the beginning was the word, the word of the people, free to express their thoughts and ideas on paper. Until recently, however, Jesuit transcended from expressing itself on paper to the digital world. And thus, www.jesuitroundup.org was born. During the first two years of its young life, two great men, Robert Uhl ’11 and Clark Durham ’12, helped form and shape this wonderful work as if it were a ball of clay. But kings must come and go, and Andrew Frank ’13 was next in line to lead graciously.
“When I knew I was going to be Editor-in-Chief of The Roundup, one of the major things I wanted to focus on was the layout of the website,” Frank commented, relaying his thoughts of the year. “Clark and his team formed the basic framework of the website. So what my senior staff and I did was fill in the gaps, e.g., connecting the site to social media, enhancing the aesthetics, and overall just making it look more professional, like the websites of some of the other award-winning newspapers in the area” such as the Dallas Morning News and The Fort Worth Star Telegram.
Before the school year actually begun, Frank had to make a game plan for the first couple of weeks and the year as a whole. His big goal for the year was to give the newspaper a bigger presence on campus. “Our primary focus last year was on the website- the senior staff and I felt this was the simplest way to immediately increase our readership. In other words, if the website design is not appealing to visitors [or] if it’s not connected to social media, it does not matter how good our reporting is because visitors won’t stay on the website for more than a few minutes.” In the end, it was amazing to see how much the website theme both improved its look and popularity among the community.
“Furthermore, we wanted to make our content more accessible and applicable to a larger audience. Generally, this entailed three things. First, we wanted to make sure all aspects of student life were covered so no one was excluded and everyone had a reason to visit our website at least once to see themselves in the paper. Second, we wanted to expand our video capabilities to tap into the students who were more attracted to this form of journalism. And third, we shifted from a predominantly straight-news paper to one that was more diverse- creating a “Jesuit March Madness” and other polls, doing more profiles of athletes and students.”
Frank’s three additions are still in use today as writers continue to churn out articles profiling students, faculty, and clubs alike. In addition, this year, The Roundup has increased its video coverage, allowing readers, such as yourself, to take a glance into the paradise Jesuit has to offer.
A website offers a good deal of advantages that outweigh those of a paper newspaper. With a website, one had the ability to “disseminate information quickly, run more cheaply, and have access to other media forms- videos, audios, interactive graphics, polls. Despite these [three] factors, you definitely lose the intimacy you get with a tangible newspaper. Some people just like to be able to hold the paper in their hands and I consider myself one of those people,” said Frank, talking about the pros and cons of a digital paper.
Looking back, everything went according to plan, maybe even better. Frank talked at length about his achievements from the year. “We made the website much more interactive, professional, and aesthetically pleasing. We broadened our audience, increased our monthly website hits, and increased the quality and frequency of our journalism. Additionally, we expanded our video capability a lot, which was very important, and made our website run more quickly. But at the end of the day, I’d say my crowning achievement was getting the Roundup ties.”
“It’s a lot of work without a doubt, but the community and friendship you build- with both your fellow writers and editors and moderators – is awesome. It was worth it to give a little back to Jesuit for all the opportunities it has given me.”
Today, Frank is a freshman at Georgetown University in Washington D.C pursuing a major in government. However, he might switch to the School of Foreign Service, a school withing the University dedicated towards making a contribution to global peace.
And now, (drum roll, please), I have the privilege of introducing the last leg of the Digistory (Digital History) of The Roundup. Without further ado, may I present our current Editor-in-Chief, Senior Aaron Stonecipher ’14.
So far, under Stonecipher’s leadership, The Roundup has already achieved two months with 10,000+ views, a wide array of video coverage, a large supply of news and sports articles, and an increase in staff members, doubling to 55 from 27. However, he still has many goals set for the course of the year.
“The biggest objective is trying to get The Roundup to be the biggest it’s ever been in regards to staff size and article views. I think that this is possibly the biggest year The Roundup has ever had just because the previous Editors-in-Chief of past years did a great job of establishing a strong foundation for us, today. Another goal was to make The Roundup feel like one big team. In the past, students would write articles, submit, and then be done. I want the staff to feel like a team that helps put each article up together. I want each student to feel like they belong.”
As of now, “we are producing almost 10 articles a week on average, so that’s awesome because that means some weeks we’re producing even more. By
the end of the year, I hope to have produced videos every two weeks, and I hope I can look back and see 10,000+ views every month,” concludes Stonecipher.
This year, Stonceipher implemented the Beat Writer system, in which one writer is put in charge of specific topics for the entire year. So far, the plan has worked well such that The Roundup is covering all of the happenings on and beyond campus.
Under Stonecipher’s jurisdiction, The Roundup has 42 writers on staff. This number is comprised of 14 seniors, 15 juniors, three sophomores, and ten freshmen. Seven juniors are Junior Editors. Each of these seven is assigned 2-3 nights of the week in which they are to read, edit, and provide commentary on the other students’ articles.
Stonecipher’s cabinet includes seniors Justin Rubenstein, Managing Editor; Pierce Durham, News Editor; Dylan Dotter, Sports Editor; John Michael Lucido, Sports Editor; Matt Mazzini, Tech Editor/Video Coordinator; Jeff Melsheimer, Junior Editors Manager; and last, and certainly not the least, Jason Myers, Integrity Compliance Manager. These eight young men, plus the moderation of Dr. Michael Degen and Ms. Susie Andrews, all together, form the driving force of The Roundup.
The rest of this history is still unwritten as The Roundup continues to write its own story.
