Collegiate Times

With the beginning of a new semester, the Collegiate Times is adapting to the changing tide of how our readers receive news. This year we are adding new online content to make our website a constant resource for readers. Blogs, interactive graphics and morning news digests on your favorite subjects will now be featured daily on CollegiateTimes.com. We know you’re online, so we are too.

As we expand our presence online, we continue to publish our classic print edition. You can expect the same dedication to news and campus coverage — with a strong focus on illuminating the issues college students deal with every day. The Collegiate Times staff is entirely composed of Virginia Tech students, but the paper is independent of the university. This means we’re covering issues that affect our readers and writers, from the student staff to faculty members and Blacksburg residents.

You can find a news home with the Collegiate Times. We are in print four days a week, from Tuesday to Friday.

We have official Twitter and Facebook accounts for the paper and The Extra Point, our Hokie football supplement. We also have many writers updating the community through their personal Twitter accounts. You can now find our writers’ Twitter handles at the end of each story they write. We’re getting connected so you can stay informed, and we hope you take advantage of it. So while you’re catching up on last night’s photos during a striking lecture in (insert course here), check out the Collegiate Times’ coverage of everything else that happened.

But let’s talk about our four new blogs, because we know this is how many of you want to read your news.

We won’t give everything away, but suffice it to say that they’ll cover news, sports, technology and photography. The blogs will feature all of those small stories that won’t make the newspaper and also keep the discussion going about stories that do. They will be used as the front lines for breaking news that affects Tech students, taking the pulse of campus life. And then they will also be used as a sounding board. Reader comments and questions will be heavily featured on our blogs. There’s only so much we can fit on our print pages, but that doesn’t mean everything else isn’t important. Premiering today, the blogs will be a regularly updated source of on and off campus happenings that we think you should know about. Go online to find your favorite.

If you check the Collegiate Times website while you grab lunch this year, you will find interactive content you can click through to stay current during the day. Interactive graphics, photo galleries and video content will be appearing on the site at noon every weekday to give you a new, visual approach to the news.

There will also be some changes coming to the opinions section this year. Keep in mind it is entirely devoted to the opinions of community members. We invite our readers to provide their own opinions as columnists (of the guest or regular variety), through letters to the editor or via commenting and tweeting — we do that too. Look out for some themed days to feature a variety of perspectives on a specific topic. Don’t agree? We’d love to hear from you, in the form of letters and comments and tweets.

We’re still the Collegiate Times you know, read and trust. Now, we are the Collegiate Times you follow, tweet and interact with. We are there with the information you need, when you need it.

Zach Crizer

Editor-in-Chief

@zcrizer

A version of this article appeared in the Aug 22 issue of the Collegiate Times.