The day I’ve been dreading is here: The Daily Eastern News will be going down to printing once a week.

Since my freshman year I have had two goals; first to be the Editor-in-Chief of this publication and second to keep our nearly 50-year-old tradition of printing a daily newspaper alive. While I’m proud to be EIC and to be the last EIC of the daily print product but, I would be lying if I said this was not a heartbreaking experience for me.

The DEN was what brought me to Eastern. Other aspects of the campus drew me in afterward, but nothing compared to learning that I would, as a freshman, be able to work for a daily newspaper.

Once at Eastern, I started working for student publications before I went to my first class as a college student and I fell in love instantly.

Now, three years later, my love and passion for the DEN has only grown.

Through this paper I have learned how to confidently interview anyone I come into contact with, take photos, edit stories, design a newspaper, manage a staff, etc. However, the most important thing I have taken away from my time with the DEN is how much of an impact working on a daily newspaper can have on student journalists in their life and in their careers.

Students working at the DEN get an experience much different than anything other journalism majors around the state and country get, we are involved in the entire production process from start to finish.

This begins with editors assigning stories, editing the stories, photos and columns when they come in and turning them in to be placed on pages. Once in the hands-on the night chief (either the Editor-in-Chief or the Managing Editor), the stories, photos and columns are placed on the page and designed to create each page of the newspaper.

The pages are then sent to the press across the hallway and made into the next day’s paper.

For the last several decades, much of this process has happened all in the same day.

Now, our staff will be seeing some changes. We will be doing all of the same work to cover the campus and surrounding community, but with less of a focus on our daily paper.

With these changes come mixed emotions and the end of a very important chapter in the DEN’s history.

Going forward, we will be able to focus more on storytelling in a variety of ways and more long-form journalism to tell the stories of Eastern.

Today is a sad day in our history, but it is not the end of The Daily Eastern News. This is the beginning of something new and beautiful that I am so excited to share with our readers.

I want to thank my staff, our advisers and our readers for being a part of this transition in our delivery of the news.

Your support means everything to us.

Corryn Brock is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].