Our publication’s name change to the Friar’s Lantern reflects our goal: to serve you better.
With a new school year comes new changes in our school community. Father Reilly begins his term as Head of School. The schedule has been changed yet again. And our staff decided it was time for a change as well.
This publication, formerly known as The Blackfriar Chronicle, has changed its official name back to The Friar’s Lantern.
The Friar’s Lantern was the original name of the publication when it first started back in 1932 at Malvern. Over the years, the name changed to the Cynosure then to The Blackfriar Chronicle in 1985. Later, in 2012, our website was created under the name The Friar’s Lantern as a tribute to the old name.
The change makes our branding consistent across all platforms, including our website and social media accounts. But this wasn’t the only reason for the changes.
As discussed in our May 2016 editorial, the word “lantern” signifies illuminating the truth. For us, that means doing ethical reporting on the subjects that truly matter. The word “friar” symbolizes doing this reporting from the student body’s perspective: students at an Augustinian, all-boys private school.
We have two goals as a staff as laid out in our mission statement: to provide accurate and relevant information to the Malvern community and to offer a forum for intelligent dialogue on all things Malvern. But have we been actually doing that?
We feel, as a staff, that we have been achieving the first goal, but we need to work on the latter. The Friar’s Lantern is producing accurate and relevant news, but we need to do a better job of engaging with you, the student body. What’s the point of having a school newspaper if it isn’t generating much discussion among the Malvern community?
We want to meet students where they are. We want to become more of a cohesive and versatile news source.
One way we have chosen to do this is by adding Snapchat to our list of social media accounts.
With Snapchat and our other social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, we plan to include more instant news of all the great things happening on campus like sports games, pep rallies, and more. We also plan to have more fun things on our social media, like Stewart Hall food reviews and student and athlete social media takeovers.
We also plan to get more student voice in the publication. We commit to get the majority of students in our publication, whether it be through sources in articles or in polls we’ll be doing throughout the year.
Our staff recognizes the fact that our news is more integrated than ever between our online and print platforms, as all of our stories in print go online. So, we made our name consistent to match. We also want to be more integrated in the Malvern community, and engage with you to give you what you want and need to see.
Also, we always encourage you to give us ideas for stories. Email us at [email protected] if you want to see something covered in the Friar’s Lantern. Follow us at lantern.news for our Snapchat and Instagram, @friarslantern1 for Twitter, and The Friar’s Lantern for Facebook.
