Starting in the fall 2024 semester, The Patriot student newspaper will be introducing a new app to view articles and photos at the students’ leisure.
Due to budgetary restraints, the number of printed articles will be lowered significantly and the primary way of reading our articles will be through this new mobile app. Utilizing the same host for the Patriot website, the app will be directly connected and symmetrical to the website.
In order to view the Patriot’s new app, students will need to download the “College News Source” app and search for FMU. Once selected, The Patriot will become the default newspaper whenever the app is opened. Students will also be able to use this app to view the student newspapers for other universities across the country, so they have the option to keep up with universities their friends or family may be attending as well.
Why move to digital? Printing as many copies as we do has been costing a lot of money, close to $1,000, and having this app will allow for more money to spend on other needs of The Patriot. Along with the financial benefits, the shift to a mobile app will allow The Patriot to stay more up-to-date and consistent with the content that is sent out to the students.
With this change, more content will be sent out more frequently, allowing FMU students to stay up to date on what is going on around campus. This also allows more coverage of more events than what is typically presented in physical print.
Student organizations and athletics will not only be able to receive more coverage but if there is any news going on in the Florence community, these items can also be covered as well. If it affects the student body of FMU, it can be covered and released for all students to read about.
Many students may miss the physical print, but hope for a physical newspaper may not be lost. It is currently being decided whether or not we will print for the fall 2024 semester, but regardless of the outcome, there is always a potential to come back and print something in the future.
We are currently researching and experimenting with our online services to see what we can do as we plan to utilize The Patriot to push the boundaries of this app and the website.
The app will feature more current stories, photo galleries and up-to-date sports scores. It will also feature more expanded coverage of student events on and off campus.
The Patriot has been printing newspapers as the third FMU student newspaper since the 1990s. Although printing ceased for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, printing has been continued for the past couple of years and The Patriot has quickly regained its status as a staple of the FMU community.
If you are a member of a student organization and would like to have an event covered, please reach out to us at fmupatriotnews@gmail.com to let us know what’s going on and we can feature it on our new app.
Also, with this expansion of content, we are in need of sports writers, photographers and general writers. If you are interested in any of these paid positions for the upcoming semester, please send an email to the same address above with examples of your work.
Thank you to everyone who has read our newspaper and interacted with our prints over the years. While it is bittersweet to no longer have a print edition, the benefits are great and we are excited to see what happens next.
Remember to download the app next semester and search for FMU to stay up to date on all events on campus and read about what the campus community has been up to.