With the birth of our new website wdadvocatenews.com in 2016, I was asked a few times about the newspaper, more specifically, if we were “getting rid of the paper” or “Will we still have the paper?”
The answer was a resounding YES. Perhaps we should print that larger and bolder but hopefully you get the point.
While our website is exciting, it will never be what we do. The newspaper, now referred to more accurately as our print product, is who we are. It’s who we have been since 1867. It’s whom we WILL BE moving forward — 153 years and counting!
The website can be looked at as an extension of what we do. Another way of getting you the same local news you’ve expected and trusted over the years. And while we enjoy being at your fingertips with newsprint residue left over, we also realize that often times you are on your smartphones wanting and needing information.
Our site can help bridge that gap. It’s also a nice way to integrate it into our social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.
This has been very useful in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve been able to get you information in real time much quicker than with ONLY our weekly print product. We’ve also broken news on our site and have been publishing stories free of charge in April as a way to give back to the community with the top goal always of keeping you informed.
While there is no fear of the web replacing print for the Advocate News, I will say it has forced us to rethink some things. Better yet, it has given us the chance to adapt.
One of those areas, we think, is with gathering information.
We have put all our forms online. For anything from a birth to an obituary, you can go to our website and submit forms electronically rather than having to come into our office or call us to have a form faxed or emailed. You can also submit news, photos and letters to the editor through our site.
One specific change we implemented in 2016 was collecting our Durant and Wilton senior class bios online rather than with paper forms sent to the school.
We’ve gone above and beyond with our high school graduation sections for years. On top of a name and photo, we add a brief bio on each Durant and Wilton graduate. This had previously been done by sending forms to the schools, where they were filled out longhand.
With the launch of our website, I decided to recreate our high school senior bio form online in 2016 and put a link to it on our website. We sent emails to both schools explaining that we were trying something new. I also turned to social media and posted a link to the form on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
We’ve been collecting them the same way since and we’re at it again. I can’t begin to tell our 2020 seniors how heartbroken I am that you won’t be returning to school.
WE NEED ALL DHS AND WHS SENIOR BIOS BY APRIL 30.
Parents, we need your help too. If you are reading this, ask your high school senior if he or she has turned in their Advocate News senior bio.
The form (pictured) tells us what we need to know and will help us with putting together your senior bios. In this digital world with both schools having a 1:1 computer initiative, it just makes sense to do this.
It will take no more than a few minutes to fill out and submit a form. It will help with the timeliness of us putting them together as we’re planning to still run full graduation sections in the month of May.