Due to COVID-19 and numerous restrictions placed on campus, The Oswegonian will be changing its publication schedule and amount of content that readers will see for the entirety of the fall semester.
What used to be a weekly 12-page paper, with the eight-page insert of Laker Review, our arts and entertainment section, will now change to a bi-weekly paper for the fall semester. With limited content in news and sports, the editorial board has decided to also change to an eight-page paper, with the same eight-page insert of Laker Review. The paper will have four pages of news, two pages of sports and two pages of opinion/editorials.
The physical paper will be published every other Friday, starting on Sept. 11 up until Nov. 20. The following week is when students will be sent home for Thanksgiving as well as the extended winter break and online finals before returning for the spring semester.
While there will, hopefully, be more stories than space in our physical paper, stories will be published on our website, oswegonian.com, continually throughout the two weeks before publishing. This will ideally lead to “select” stories, or top stories, being placed in our physical paper. Timeliness will also play a factor as to what gets published.
This decision to downsize for at least this semester came to the fact that Oswego State has said that there will be limited events and no outside visitors — basically shutting down our “event coverage” for our news section. The SUNYAC — as well as the Empire 8 which hosts golf, and the Northeast Women’s Hockey League which hosts women’s hockey — will be suspended/delayed.
In terms of fall sports, “no decision has been made on competitions this year and we are looking at various options for those sports that could include some competition during the spring semester,” according to Interim Director of Athletics Eric Summers. Winter sports are eyeing a return of after Jan. 1, 2021.
The number of physical papers will also decrease every other week. Due to budget cuts from Oswego State’s Student Association, we have decided to cut to 1,000 issues to be spread around campus and the city of Oswego every other week. With restrictions on campus, newspapers will not be placed in dorm halls with our circulation director. We will attempt to get it in high-traffic areas on campus as well as in Oswego.
Final decisions on locations will be made in the coming weeks on locations and we will update our readers where they can pick up physical papers.
With the hopeful addition of sports, and more news and events, all in the spring, the number of issues will remain the same. However, the plan is to go back to our “original” schedule of a 12-page paper with the eight-page Laker Review tab every Friday.
While it is going to be unusual this semester, myself and Matt Watling, our managing editor, wanted to give our staff the opportunity to learn and grow. This way, our editors can learn our different programs and software that they will not only use while working for The Oswegonian, but, if they choose to pursue a career in journalism, can use their entire career.
As always, The Oswegonian hopes that our readers will continue to make us their No. 1 source for local news, sports coverage, editorials and arts & entertainment as they have since 1935.
