Web & Social Media
Web & Social Media
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It's hard to deny the influence and presence media has on society. It would be foolish, as a news source, not to take advantage of what's quickly becoming people's way of learning news. The world of media is not to be feared; it's to be embraced. Therefore, expanding The Purple Tide's media presence has been one of the top priorities for me.
Web
Web
Maintaining and keeping a website is no easy joke. I want to thank Alexine, our Online Managing Editor, for pulling much of the weight. At chantillynews.org, our website helps us reach an audience beyond our students and faculty, into the state-wide and national spotlight. I've found myself playing with WordPress's interactive features and different formatting options.
At first glance
At first glance
Welcome! When you first click into our website, you're introduced to our most recent articles. There's a breaking news bar showing updates on lastest things going around our school or community. Here, at The Purple Tide, we want to ensure that the navigation is easy and friendly. We gave multiple tabs for every section, including staff bios, past issues, games, and sports scoreboards.
Interactive elements
Interactive elements
Journalists are hunters in the 21st century – one for attention, a precious and rare concept. Once you trap the reader (with your awesome lede, cover, or headline!), you need to keep the reader hooked. What better way to do that than through... interactive elements? At our newspaper, we're masterful hunters, ones that use many means to keep the readers in our grasp. Here are my favorites.
Cover formats
When you format a story, we encourage the use of "interactive-half image," as you can see by the picture on the left. It creates a spread-like cover, which I find more visually pleasing. Read the featured story here.
Long-form segments
When we have longer articles, like in-depths, I always make sure to format them in long-form segments. It divides sections and is visually more interactive and appealing. Read the featured story here.
Crossword puzzle
But what's something 3.32 billion people do all around the world?
Play internet games.
Our Online Managing Editor, Alexine, helped put the crossword puzzle into the website after a discussion on how to make our website more interactive. Several of my friends report attempting it, so things like this boost the likelihood of people engaging with our newspaper. After all, they have to read the articles to get the answers here! Play this here.
Pull quotes
An underrated tool, truly. Oftentimes, your interviewee will give a deep quote or a quote that makes the reader double-take. This quote here is golden, one to remember to this day. We want to hook the reader the same way! Pull quotes also help guide the article as well, and signposts the tone and focus of the article. This was a pattern I observed that was used by Time Magazine. Read the featured article here.
Gallery
Oftentimes, for photo essays or stories that have multiple pictures, an interactive way to put them all in is through WordPress's "Gallery" function. Once you put all the pictures in it, it becomes a mini slideshow with the captions on the slide. I encourage its use when you have more than 4 photos. Read the featured article here.
Infographics
Infographics
By nature, a majority of us find visual things easier to process and understand. Therefore, the importance of infographics, or information through a form of visual representation, is particularly high in our newsroom. A particular concept and word-dense paragraph can be boiled down to a blue illustration, something that readers will greatly appreciate. I used to think of them as a "cheat code" or "shortcut," but infographics are another form of storytelling – essentially, another form of journalism. Here are some I made:
Social Media
Social Media
Now it's time to hunt for more readers through @chs.tpt, our Instagram, which is our bridge for an audience yet again, past our Chantilly community. To do this, I switched up a few things.
As of January 2026, our Instagram account had received 16,200 views in just the last 30 days.
"Read me!"
"Read me!"
... is what The Purple Tide wants our social media posts to scream. We, as journalists, need to hook readers. Yes, that means giving them a snippet of our article in the description, but it also means being timely and consistent.
In our school district, we recently got a week off school because of the snow. The week was followed by a full 2-hour delay week. This made this Instagram post all the more relevant. Publishing it in mid-December was a timely and well-thought-out choice by the writer and editors.
Our next slide picture is always the lede. We do this to make the reader curious and want to keep reading, something they can do by clicking the link in the Instagram account's description.
Slide 2
Revamping our standards
Revamping our standards
The Purple Tide's Instagram Feed, April 2024 The Purple Tide's Instagram Feed, January 2026
I'm going to be honest: The Purple Tide's Instagram feed looked a little jumbled and messy when I first joined, with too many words in one picture. I had an issue with how we were inconsistent in the formatting as well. So, as a solution, I have no shame in saying I took big inspiration from major news outlets that have tens of thousands of followers, like The Wall Street Journal and The University of Virginia's The Cavalier Daily. A big portion of our readers comes from social media, so I feel a greater responsibility to put out high-quality content!
Here's the template I created, as you see on the left. The best image is with the section label and the headline first. There's a slight black gradient and it's only in the description where you mention the writer's name. I found that when we tried to squeeze the writer's name into the post picture as well, it made it too "busy." Pictures are what people go by, so they need to be as simple and attention-grabbing as possible. This also ensured consistency.
Image 1: Section + title + logo in upper right corner. Image 2: Give the readers a sneak peek! + enlarged first letter + logo in upper right corner
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