I want to take the time to explain some of the changes you’re seeing in today’s newsletter.
The new color palette, typeface and overall feel are meant to better reflect Morning, Trojan’s move to Annenberg Media. Gone are the days of me putting together a cutesy project for fun — we’re in it for the long haul now, and we’re looking to expand. This refreshed look reflects a new level of professionalism.
I’d like to thank Allison Huang, a freshman at Iovine and Young, for working with me on this refresh. Allison and I founded a newspaper together in our junior year of high school, and she was the one who managed our visual front there. It was a no-brainer to hire her again.
The more substantial change I’d like to address is the new way I’m ordering the stories. In the old format that stuck to the “On Campus,” “In L.A.” and “California” headers, I often found myself struggling to find newsworthy stories every day at each geographic scale — particularly at USC — which meant I would include so-so stories for the sake of filling the section.
The strict order also sometimes meant that newsworthy stories in the California section were buried underneath less important articles, just because of the geographic structure. That’s no longer the case. From now on, I’ll be ordering the seven stories in terms of my judgement of their pure newsworthiness to USC students — and if that means there are no USC campus stories that day, then so be it.
As always, we’re constantly looking for new ways to grow and evolve; even this refresh will only stick around for as long as we don’t come up with any better ideas. But for now, I’m proud to present the new Morning, Trojan, and I’m proud of what it’s taken to get here.
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