No rest for the weary, right?
Changing Tides launched last month thanks to the efforts of an incredibly dedicated staff, some helpful colleagues at The Crimson White, and the support of the Office of Student Media. We came, we saw, we put together a collection of articles and multimedia projects aimed at illuminating an oft-suppressed campus issue, race relations. While I won’t say we hit a home run—if only you’d seen our initial, much more ambitious news budgets—I do think we were able to do the research and collect the student voices to accurately depict the state of race relations at the University of Alabama in 2009.
But the story doesn’t end there. This is a topic with a sprawl and scope that can’t be wholly encapsulated in a set of static articles and videos. So while the Changing Tides website will remain mostly unchanged over the summer (content-wise, anyway; expect a visual redesign at some point), the staff will move into the Wild West of the blogosphere. We will offer personal insights and perspectives on various subjects pertinent to the topic of race relations in hopes that you, the audience, might do the same. We’ll provide some of the research and interviews that we could not fit into the structure of the magazine. We won’t let the conversation die because it deserves more than that.
Again we encourage your participation and response. An endeavor such as this is nothing without active interest and engagement from its userbase. So speak up! We’re listening, and we can help others listen too.
As we move forward you’ll also be able to see the thought process that goes into choosing the next topic for Changing Tides. Where that roulette wheel might land is still anyone’s guess, but there are some ideas perculating.
If you follow this blog, I promise we’ll make it worth your time. Give you something to think about on those plaintive summer nights (yeah, I don’t really know if that’s an appropriate phrase either).
Keep reading.
