As journalists, we at The Daily Eastern News are constantly looking for new and interesting ways to improve our coverage at Eastern and better serve our readers.

This past weekend many members of our staff and of The Warbler staff were fortunate enough to attend the College Media Association convention in Chicago where we had plenty of chances to do just that.

We went to numerous sessions and workshops located that focused on different aspects of journalism. Our meetings with professional and student journalists from across the nation invigorated us. We were reminded of journalism’s importance to society and democracy, and gained insight and solutions to issues we face through our work. We have returned refreshed and ready serve the Eastern community with all we have learned.

Our staff plans to use our new skills to connect more with readers online with social media, redesign our layout both online and in print to make it more visually appealing, develop new graphics and illustrations to convey information, revise our editorial page policy, and try new techniques to improve our news, photo, sports, and feature coverage.

We are incredibly excited about the upcoming few weeks as we experiment with implementing these new skills and finding which ones fit in best with our own unique brand of journalism.

Our chosen field is in a state of flux now more than ever. But it excites us to get a chance to participate in such a transition phase. We firmly believe our society will always have a want and need for quality journalism. While no one is sure what form it will take in the future, we intend to explore the possibilities.

While the sessions we attended at the convention certainly helped us find new ideas for the work we do everyday and gave us new energy to do it, they also helped you, our readers. As journalists we consider ourselves to be public servants. We aim to bring you information about the campus, its people and its issues. By attending conventions such as this, we learn better ways to do just that. We are constantly trying to become a better publication and to keep you better informed.

Some of the changes and new skills we plan on implementing will happen over time, but there are many we plan to start using right away.

Over the course of the remaining semester please keep an eye out for anything new you see with The News. We think you will be pleased with the changes we will be making. If you like what you see, let us know through letters to the editor or comments on our website or social media pages. If you are not too fond of things, please still tell us. As we said, we are here for you.