Dear readers,
Well, as the saying goes, this is the end of the line. Unfortunately, we have printed the last edition of The Collegian for the spring semester of 2020.
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While it breaks my heart to deliver the news, it was something that we spent a lot of time thinking about at Rocky Mountain Student Media, and eventually, it became an unavoidable decision.
Although the last print edition of the newspaper for this semester hit the newsstands on March 12, that isn’t going to keep us down or stop us from bringing campus and community news to you, our valued readers.
The Collegian is dedicated to delivering the news and sharing the stories of our community, and we’re going to seize this opportunity to bolster the digital side of the publication.
Having printed the last edition of the paper for the semester, we are now transitioning to a fully digital publication until May. With our online only presence for the next few weeks, we’re going to continue to focus on the stories that make Fort Collins so great.
We will continue publishing on our normal daily schedule with new stories online Monday through Thursday and breaking news updates as the news happens. We will be focusing on the stories that still inform, entertain and lift up the community, especially in a time when it’s easy to feel down.
The decision to stop printing for the rest of the semester was tough to say the least. You could have heard a pin drop on a down pillow when we realized what choice we were faced with. But in the end, we decided it was the best and safest choice for everyone involved.
In order to keep everyone at The Collegian and Rocky Mountain Student Media safe, we have embraced the recommended social distancing guidelines and have avoided gathering in groups of more than even a couple of people.
In order to put the newspaper together on a normal night, a team of nearly 20 editors and designers gathers in a single office space, and we all work next to each other. Given the guidelines for group sizes and working spaces, our normal production workspace would be pretty risky if someone was sick.
We would never want to put anyone in a situation that’s unsafe or makes them uncomfortable, so we had to scratch our normal production routine off the list of options for the rest of the semester.
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Along with our own decision to follow the recommended social distancing guidelines, it was only a few days later that the University announced the closure of all “non-essential” offices and workspaces. This includes the newsroom on the first floor of the Lory Student Center, the space where we design and edit the print pages.
But even those challenges haven’t stopped us from trying for one more print edition of the newspaper. On March 25, the team gathered for one last print production routine — but over video conference calling and text messages. We had planned on getting an issue out on March 26, but the plans got scrambled halfway through our production.
With state and countywide stay-at-home orders, we couldn’t print. We couldn’t risk sending out a distribution team, and we had to call it off. But that didn’t stop us from finishing the paper. What would have been the March 26 edition of The Rocky Mountain Collegian now lives online in our archives.
So, as we put together the would-be last edition of the newspaper for this semester, it comes to you from a lot of unique places.
The newspaper was made in the offices, living rooms and bedrooms of our editors around the country. Piece by piece, it was designed and edited by students on kitchen tables, countertops and desks from as far away as Wisconsin, Connecticut and elsewhere on the East Coast.
While the print version of The Collegian may have to be put on hold for the rest of the semester, stay tuned as we continue to report on the Colorado State University and Fort Collins communities online.
Thank you for your continued support and readership.
Sincerely,
Forrest Czarnecki, Editor-in-Chief
Forrest Czarnecki can be reached at editor@collegian.com or on Twitter @forrestczar.