Online edition helps 'The Review' spread the news

Published twice weekly, the online edition complements the print edition of The Review, which comes out every Tuesday, and is available at more than 100 locations on the UD campus and in the Newark area.

The new web site is the latest of several changes that began in 2005, when The Review switched to a weekly print edition appearing in tabloid form. Previously, The Review had appeared twice a week in large newspaper format.

Publishing two online editions a week will benefit current and future editors, Dan Mesure, editor-in-chief of The Review, said.

“Having a presence of more than once a week means our staff has to be on top of things throughout the week,” Mesure said. “We feel the next step for the web site would be breaking news, which is something we are currently working on.”

The online version of The Review is the work of its web site editor Lee Procida, an English journalism major with a minor in interactive media, and art director John Clifford, a senior visual communications major.

The Review web site is hosted by College Publisher [http://cpsite.collegepublisher.com], a Boston-based technology and services company hosting more than 450 college publications nationwide.

Those in charge of ‘The Review’ online include (from left) Dan Mesure, editor-in-chief, Lee Procida, web site editor, and Cait Simpson, executive editor.

“In exchange for allowing some of their advertisements to appear on our web site, we can host our site with them for free,” Procida said. “They also make things a lot easier to work with by supplying a system through which editors can easily add media, edit content and change many aspects of the site without needing an in-depth knowledge of web design or programming.”

Procida said that the new web site was designed to improve appearance, navigation and ease of use by readers who choose the online version of The Review.

“The site turned out fantastic, even better than I expected, and their [College Publisher] staff has helped me enormously throughout the whole process,” Procida said. “We really could not be doing a lot of what we are doing if it was not for them.”

Features to look for on the site include an events calendar, message boards and article comments that can only be found on the web edition.

“Our new web site will give us more options, like the use of slide shows, where we can include as many photos as we want,” Cait Simpson, executive editor of The Review, said. “We can link to other parts of the stories, and the database allows users to search stories from the past.”

Although staffers are upbeat about The Review's new web site and have received a lot of positive feedback from users, Procida said that many people are still unaware that an online version of The Review is available and is published twice weekly.

“I would still like to see more people express their opinions about the news and the paper through our message boards, letters to the editor and article comments features,” Procida said. “They are designed so The Review can get a pulse for its readership and so that its readers can feel more involved in the process of producing campus news. I also would like people to start paying more attention to our events calendar and classified ads and to become more aware of what is going on in their area.”

Readers who visit The Review's new web site also will notice that the masthead, designed by Clifford, is similar to the one that appears on the cover of the paper's print edition, Mesure said.

“When Lee came to Cait Simpson, our executive editor, and me with the idea of redesigning the web site, we thought it was a great idea. It is something the paper really needed,” Mesure said. “Although the web site has been a big hit, we feel it can become even bigger.”

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Sarah Simon

E-mail this article

Subscribe to UDaily

Subscribe to crime alert e-mail notification