The Tropolitan is excited to announce the launch of its updated and rebranded website, located at the same URL, Tropnews.com.
Many readers of the Tropolitan may have noticed that the old website, which was launched in 2012, had been taken down over the Summer, and no new content had been posted since December of 2023. This was largely due to several issues related to an outdated website platform.
The new website was designed by students using the website creation platform Wix.
“I think it's super functional now, and we have a server that is kind of collaborative,” said Professor Hanna Cooper, a lecturer in the Hall School of Journalism and Communication and the faculty advisor for the Tropolitan. “The art and design department really uses Wix a lot, and so that gives us university help if anything ever does go wrong or if we want to get even more adventurous with our design.”
Tropolitan staff members said the new website will help them share stories, build portfolios, reference past content and reach a bigger audience.
“Our new website creates a more accessible and professional way for me to store and share my articles with family, friends, and prospective employers,” said Raeden Selee, the business manager for the Tropolitan and Palladium and a staff writer.
The new website was built with interaction in mind. Now, readers can submit opinions, leave comments, find contact information for the staff and submit content for The Trojan Living section, including Pet of the Week.
“They can fill out a form, submit it through the website, and that helps me keep track of it,” said Trojan Living Editor Kris Harrell, a senior multimedia journalism major from Arlington, Georgia. “It's an overall better user experience.”
While new stories will be posted to Tropnews.com every week, it will take some time to finish transferring all of the past stories to the new site. Selee is one of the people working to get all stories archived online.
“I think archiving our old stories is an excellent way to persevere the history and traditions of the Tropolitan and Troy University as a whole,” said Selee, who is a sophomore accounting major from Kennesaw, Georgia. “As a sports writer myself, my favorite part of the new website is probably the archive of the sports stories because they bring a lot of insight and coverage that would be lost in the future.”
Cooper said that having a website to post Tropolitan articles is beneficial for both the audience and the students who put the paper together.
“This is going to allow writers to be able to build their portfolio, and it even stretches beyond our writers – our photographers and graphic designers, too, will have a digital means of putting things online and have an archive space for portfolios,” Cooper said. “We are blessed to still have a printed newspaper, and that allows us to reach a sector of our target audience, but a large portion of the current generation gets their news online, and so being able to meet the needs of both was really vital.”
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