Letter from the Editor: Website Redesign

Daily print production, for many student newspapers, is a thing of the past. Over the past decade, student publications have cut some, or all, of their paper products in favor of the evolving journalistic practice that is the “digital-first” approach.

We at The Pitt News are fortunate to retain our daily papers, but we’re not overlooking our audience’s membership to a generation known for its use of smartphones, laptops and tablets. 

With that in mind, we’re rolling out our summer project: a new, sleeker website design, which comes a year after the creation of our mobile app. Some of the functional aspects of the redesign include the addition of social media buttons — which link to all our platforms, including our new Pinterest account. We’ve also added an events calendar that we’ll update with things to do on campus and around the city that may interest you, and we’ll also gladly accept submissions. Our section content is now divided according to category, and we’ll also have space for our special editions, so readers can easily access them beyond when they hit newsstands.

Aesthetically, we’ve added a sketch of the Cathedral of Learning — a striking feature on Pitt’s campus that often captures prospective Panthers and continues to allure students and alumni. Bringing the Cathedral to the online masthead highlights the paper’s connection to the University for readers who have — and haven’t — visited Oakland. 

Throughout the year, we’ll look forward to introducing other online tools to further engage our readers sitting behind a screen.  

I welcome feedback and suggestions on our redesign and the additions that came with it. Please feel free to drop by the office at 434 William Pitt Union, call me at (412)648-7985 or shoot me an email at editor@pittnews.com. By nature and job position, I’m a frequent visitor to the site. But what’s more important is that you have a reason to visit, too.

Hail to Pitt! 

Natalie Daher 

Editor-in-Chief