Next fall, in a move to attract a more diverse student readership, the Houghton Star will discontinue its print issue and move its News, Features, and Opinions sections online. Under new editorial leadership and direction, the Star will phase out its print issue gradually and replace it with an exciting range of social media campaigns.
The current Editor-and-Chief, Carina Martin, decided to finalize the radical platform switch after a bizarre interaction with a prospective student. While standing outside the chapel with a crisp stack of newspapers, Martin attempted to offer a copy of the latest Houghton scoop to a prospective high school student. “Oh, thanks a lot,” the student said. “But I don’t really read.”*
In light of this brutally honest (and entirely depressing) interaction, the staff of the Houghton Star regretfully elected to move the publication online. Opinions will be published twice a week on the Snapchat platform, along with special filters featuring beloved Houghton mascot Wal-Mart Johanssen and cool messages like “Go Highlanders!” and “Donate Online At www.houghton.edu/make-a-gift!”
However, the staff determined that the News and Features sections still deserved a sobriety and seriousness that would be impossible on the Snapchat platform. Those articles will now be published through the Instagram Stories feature. “It’s going to be a fantastic way for us to continue interacting with the student body, even those who don’t like to read or have simply forgotten how,” said Martin.
In think tanks examining the switch, many Houghton students explained that they would miss the Star despite “not really ever paying attention” to the news, opinions, or features sections. “I think it’s really great that students are willing to put so much time into making sure we know what’s going on,” one student offered. “Here’s the thing, though. The connections I make at Houghton, the activities I participate in, those are only going to last for a couple years at most. Relationships fade away, but Netflix is forever. I guess what I’m honestly trying to say is that I’m afraid of commitment and allergic to investing my time into things that I won’t directly and immediately benefit from. So to spend time reading about those things just seems like a total waste.”
The staff initially hesitated to pull the print issue because of how important they believed it was for students to discuss important topics around dinner tables and coffee mugs. But with Snapchat, they soon realized, Star readers will be able to draw brightly colored male genitalia over stories they don’t appreciate. In this creative climate, they believe, discourse will thrive as it never has before. You can also caption articles they loved with the “100” emoji.
Fear not, puzzle lovers! A member of the Star staff will be sure to upload a grainy, low-resolution version of the New York Times crossword to Snapchat every Sunday afternoon.
“Another benefit of the switch to social media is the ease with which you’ll be able to send hate mail to writers you disagree with,” an anonymous staff member added. “This year, we got a lot of feedback. Apparently having such a small and tight-knit campus makes it incredibly difficult to harass fellow students for expressing their opinions about gun control and racial reconciliation. That needs to change. No more confronting people in person or sending profanity-laced notes through campus post. We want to encourage open dialogue, after all. And everyone knows that dialogue isn’t truly open unless it’s totally insensitive and completely unrestrained.”
*Unlike almost every other fact and quote in this special April Fool’s issue of the Houghton Star, this event genuinely happened.