WHS student newspaper goes online
The student newspaper at Whitefish High School took a digital leap forward this school year when the publication moved online.
The Bulldog Breeze is now being published at www.bulldogbreeze.org. It’s a major change for the paper that previously published six print editions each school year.
Teacher Chris Schwaderer and student leaders of the paper began discussing the move online as a way to put new life into a publication they say had become stale.
“We started talking about it and decided we needed to go online,” co-editor Ella Kobelt said. “There is so much going on and we felt it would be a better way to be more timely.”
Co-editor Jon Dittman agreed that being online, with the ability to update the website every few days, was the best solution for making sure articles stay relevant.
“When we’d write about a sports team, the story was old when it finally came out,” he said. “Now we can write a story and have it on the website within an hour.”
The Bulldog Breeze website went live at the first of the year. Along with Kobelt and Dittman, head staff writers Mason Brubaker and Che Roussel continually work to make sure the website and paper’s Facebook page stay updated.
The newspaper’s content is as varied as the activities happening at the high school. Articles often focus on student success — the drama group taking top honors at state and senior athletes who have signed to play in college. One recent article focused on the impressive student art work on display inside the school, along with pictures of the art. Other content includes opinion pieces and an advice column.
Schwaderer knew the change would require more staff, so he recruited more students to join the newspaper class. The paper has about 15 staff writers.
Schwaderer said the online format allows not only more up to date information, but also for publishing more content.
“With the print version we had a finite amount of space,” he said. “Students were writing about two articles per week. If they wrote extra stories, those might not be published. Now, the focus is on the writing.”
Kobelt has four years on the newspaper staff and Dittman has served three. Both seniors have seen a positive impact with the move online.
“It changed the culture,” Kobelt said. “Before we would sit around and wait for the print edition to come out. Now we constantly produce and publish.”
“It’s more fulfilling now,” Dittman added.
Still, the focus remains on telling the stories of the students and staff at Whitefish High School.
“Every student has a story,” Schwaderer said. “Not all students attract attention and people don’t always know about them — we want to tell their story.”
The Bulldog Breeze expects to be published primarily online from now on. The staff will likely produce a few special print editions each school year for homecoming, graduation and its annual satire edition.
One concern the newspaper leaders have is making sure the Breeze is being seen by high school students and the community.
“Before, we placed the papers outside classrooms and around town so we knew people were seeing it,” Brubaker said.
“We’re cranking out this content and now we are figuring out ways to promote ourselves,” Roussel said.
Visit the Bulldog Breeze at www.bulldogbreeze.org or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bulldogbreeze.