The 2016-17 school year has been a very interesting year for The Phoenix Inquirer. From service issues to social media, this year represented a year of growth and change for the newspaper.
First of all, as the new school year started, we have gotten a bunch of new members in all three grades, plus our first members from the Class of 2023. And while we did lose some newspaper legends (such as Julian Brenman ‘20, Evan Sweitzer ‘20, and Liam Giszter ‘21), it has been made up with all of our newest members.
In the first months of the new school year, the “new”spaper got to work immediately, publishing tons of new content, and by also entertaining the rest of the Middle School through videos and assembly announcements. From “Hexudoku” to “PhoenixTechTips,” the month also had tons of new series and debuts from new members.
Shortly after, home.friendscentral.org shut down. Unfortunately, so did the newspaper. After the school suffered through dozens of Wi-Fi problems (and after we lost all our articles since February 2016), we needed to find a way to continue the newspaper legacy. And that’s where Twitter came in.
The Phoenix Inquirer used the social media platform to promote their content without needing the website. It also helped expand the newspaper to new viewers without having to remember a web address. And things went uphill from there.
During the Twitter age of the newspaper, we got our website back around winter break, despite only containing articles from February and having lost its groundbreaking design. Upon hundreds of edits (and a couple committee meetings), we have continued the Twitter feed and the website, but we also expanded even more.
The Phoenix Inquirer created a YouTube channel to store their videos and an Instagram account for photo storage and content promotion. We also managed to publish more and more articles every week. And that is the story of the new The Phoenix Inquirer!
