After 52 years, the Antioch Community High School Tom Tom is in for some big changes in the coming year. Don’t worry, we’re not doing anything too crazy, but the Tom Tom as the town of Antioch knows it will be a thing of the past. To put it simply, we feel that the Tom Tom needs some updating in order to better serve the school and community of Antioch.

However, to be honest, the decision to update the current, traditional Tom Tom was anything but simple. We will be launching a brand new website on Oct. 4 and switching to a quarterly news magazine format, with our first issue coming out on Oct. 25. Not having a monthly broadsheet issue will definitely take some getting used to, but in the long run our website and magazine combination will allow us to provide the students and community with current, up-to-date news coverage online and in-depth coverage of feature topics in the magazines.

In the past decade, countless news organizations have ventured online, providing readers with timely, up to the minute coverage of local and worldwide happenings. According to NBC News, the average teen spends about 16.7 hours on the Internet each week and I would guess that the people of Antioch are no different.  Needless to say, the Internet and technology have become a huge part of daily life.

With a new website, the Tom Tom will be able to provide similar coverage of happenings around Antioch in a way that allows us to write about a wider variety of events as they happen, instead of weeks later when a monthly issue would normally come out. We will be able to cover the big playoff football game within days (or even hours) of its occurrence, instead of two and a half weeks later, when everyone already knows the outcome. Along with this comes the idea that our coverage will be available to a wider range of readers. Everyone with access to the Internet, whether on a home computer, a mobile device or through the local library, will be able to view our content and learn about important events in and around the Antioch community.

In conjunction with the ability to publish stories online, we will also be adding a social media component to our news coverage. The Tom Tom is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to provide followers with current sporting event scores and updates and previews about events happening in the school and community. Like the Tom Tom page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram (@ACHSTomTom).

Even with all of this talk about the online components of our news organization, we will, by no means, be getting rid of the print aspect of the Tom Tom. This format will essentially be the same as the traditional Tom Tom, but with less news coverage and a different look on the outside. The sections within the magazine have been consolidated down to four: news, sports, perspectives and lifestyles. Though we may not print issues as often, the news magazine format will allow for more in-depth feature-based articles that can remain on newsstands longer, without the worry that they will lose their timeliness. More thoughtful writing about various topics, combined with interesting and exciting layout, will truly engage students and community members. The idea of less news coverage in our print source will also prevent the repetition of stories online and in the magazines. Every time a reader logs onto our website or opens the latest magazine, they will be met with new material to capture their attention.

In introducing these changes, both to the high school and to the community, I hope that we can spark a regained interest in our program and make people excited to view our content. I believe that with the addition of these various new components to our organization, the Tom Tom can become much more than just another high school newspaper in the eyes of our readers.