As part of my internship, I wanted to explore the realm of advertising and marketing more. Fig City was (and still is) at a point where they rely purely on donations to fund the paper, and so I spent my summer trying to convince them to incorporate advertising. 

A large concern for us is that many local city newspapers are flooded with various advertisements because they simply don't have the bandwidth anymore to be sustained without them. A large feature of Fig City is that it has maintained a very clean web format that readers enjoyed, and so my goal was to find a way to begin slowly incorporating ads in a way that is not as noticeable to readers. 

I came up with a plan, but they didn't end up using it, unfortunately. Bruce did say that he still has the tab open, though, so I'm hoping that in the future I'll be able to work with Fig City again to get that plan going.

Thankfully, "print newspaper" is significant enough to merit underclassmen to try us out when they first step foot in our glorious high school. 

Not just because we're a newspaper, but just in general, we're regarded as one of the top clubs in the school in terms of member count and popularity. We're currently at about 50 active and consistent reporters with 27 staff members. So we have about 77 active members, and a couple dozen inactive who drift in and out. 

Compared to previous volumes, those numbers are massive. Before this volume, especially when I was a news editor, we would be lucky if we even got 2 reporters. Especially after COVID, attendance and participation was at an all time low. By utilizing social media, pushing constant outreach, and creating content that people actually are engaged with and want to read, we were able to grow those numbers significantly.

But if they need a little more convincing, during the first few weeks of school, our school hosts "club fairs" for freshman (or anyone, really) to come and explore the dozens of clubs that Newton South has. This photo is misleading, because I was actually just taking a break from harassing freshman, pushing their noses into papers, or simply saying, "You want this." and simply handing them a paper without waiting for a reply. 

^That strategy is actually really effective, because then they start chasing you down and saying, "No! I don't want it!" Cue, The Pitch™.

Promising snacks also helps.

A large component of our paper that we like to maintain are our series, because thats house we hold onto readership. Oftentimes, when I see people picking up the paper, they either tear it up, cover it in glue and make paper maché in 3D art, or they flip to their favorite series. 

1 in 2000 is a staple in our features section. We alternate between featuring students, teachers, administrators, and other members of the community who are vital to the health of our school.

The Common Application, a series where we follow around 4 anonymous seniors and document their college application journey, is one of our most popular that we brought back this school year. Previous staffs were against it because it fueled the college-pressure-cooker that is Newton South, but we brought it back and made sure that we were incorporating all different type of students. Not just debate kids and ivy legacies (ugh). Once the seniors commit, their names and schools are revealed. It is so fun watching everyone get excited and speculate over who might be doing what and going where, among all grades, not just seniors.

News in Review is one of our newer series that replaced what was formerly known as "South Spots" (aka my old column, what the heck 😔). Its separated into 3 sections (South, Newton, and Massachusetts) and is a great way for new news writers to begin writing and researching quick hitting local stories (<- the old South Spots punchline 😔😔😔).

And finally, the one, the only, FUN PAGE. Aka, the only reason a lot of people actually pick up the paper, we always make sure that fun page always has the crossword and Roaroscope, both of which have been Roar traditions since the late 80s.