- For starters, I really like the cover of the salary guide, and the rest of it was pretty interesting as well. I don’t know if we usually use covers like that for this edition, but it seems right on par with what we’ve been talking about the last few weeks
- Thursday’s paper had a good cover page from my perspective. The stories seemed interesting, or at least comparatively to the articles within the paper. I also think the pictures have improved, and they aren’t blown up to take up a huge amount of the page.
- The main article on the cover of Monday’s paper is good, and the update on our region is a little less exciting but I think it’s necessary. I’m a little bored by the students experiencing burnout, because all I’ve heard since school started is burnout, so I’m not sure if that’s great news right now. I also liked the picture for the main article, but I guess there’s not really action happening in it
- the layout of 3A for Monday looks a little weird to me with the two pics at the very top and then all text the rest of the page, but I don’t really know anything about layout so I don’t know if that’s a fair critique
- I like the layout and cutouts on 1B for sports in Monday’s paper. More interesting to look at and read through
- I think the features article on the age of politics skewing representation might have been nice for the cover in Monday’s paper. The graphs look good and I found the article more interesting than students experiencing burnout, but I guess there was already a graph on the cover
- Our online felt like it kind of just operated as normal, so we probably could have done more with updates for elections.
- The video we posted for election day was pretty good and I liked the incorporation of interviews into the video, another instance of the voice of the interviewee playing nicely. Not a huge fan of the football video we posted because the narrator just has a really low energy and it sounds like he’s whispering
- Probably could have posted a lot more about the election on social media, like some live updates and things like that
Category: Responses
Post your critiques
For this week’s class, the assignment is to critique both of the print and all of the online editions from this week. Post your comments in the Responses:Critique category.
Student Innovation Competition
- Meme/Satire edition once a year or once a semester; this type of journalism really resonates with our generation and I think the DI doesn’t always have the best engagement with students at the university. This would also give the DI a chance to connect with students from across the country.
- Create another sector of the website for reader’s to submit their ideas: what do students/our community want us to cover? Do they want more videos, photos, graphics, etc.? We can’t always predict what the community wants to read or hear about as students; we are kind of in our own bubble as college students. This sector could also include polls or surveys to better narrow down content
- Daily Illini Snapchat – students may not want to wait for us to produce a video following a sporting event, music event, protest, etc. so why not show them what is happening live. Snapchat is arguably the most used app of our generation and could better connect us to students. It would also be a good way to “tease” our more professional content so when we do put a video or a story out about the event people will be more enticed to check it out.
Improving Engagement
- More pointed social media
- To me our social media presence seems neutered in a way. Trying very hard to be hyper professional but in a boring way
- Try to have more of an edge, though in what way I’m not sure
- Improve video
- These also tend to be edited in what’s trying to be hyper professional but often seem kind of boring
- This seems harder since there are less in person events to video, and I don’t want to see zoom recordings ever
- Including sound bites from interviews on the website
- Just like Professor Meyer suggested, and this should be easier than normal because interviews over zoom can be a lot easier to record than in person with background noise
- Meme Edition
- Agree with Cassidy on a Comedic Edition
- I was a big fan of the Black Sheep and they went under, maybe we could have a regular section in our paper that is satirical in some way. it could be something interesting to push in our social media as well