Welcome back!

Orion editors at work Tuesday on the Poynter coaching exercise.

Another semester of The Orion kicked off Tuesday with the first day of Oriontation. Editors attended sessions about coaching, brainstorming story ideas and the importance of high-impact images for stories. They also heard about my word for the semester: Urgency. Doing good work and getting it in front of the audience as soon as possible is one way the paper could really improve this semester.

Since yesterday, I found three items about managing I thought I'd pass along:

From the Poynter Institute: 25 Ideas Nonprofit Newsrooms Can't Afford to Ignore
This piece is written for newsrooms at nonprofit news organizations, but the tips apply just as much to student newsrooms. Lots of great advice here about focusing on the audience and diversifying where your money comes from.

Another from Poynter: What Defines a Healthy Newsroom Culture
Roy Peter Clark discusses what makes a workplace great for creative people in the news business. The Orion is that kind of place in several important ways, but there are also some things that could be improved.

Design for the new square-tab format for the print edition
I think the smaller format The Orion is moving to this semester can be designed to get more readers to pick up the paper, but it's hard to find good examples of covers done in this format done well. The Emory Wheel might be a place to look for inspiration. Here's its front page from today: