Welcome back to Kent State. Please try to contain your excitement.

The next 15 weeks of school are going to be busy for everyone. Between the start of classes and finals week, there will be speakers, meetings, primary elections, student government elections, spring break, an occasional controversy and anything else thrown at you.

I don’t mean to overwhelm you on the first day, but you should know what you are getting into. There’s going to be a lot going on, and the people working for the Daily Kent Stater, TV2, Black Squirrel Radio and The Burr plan to keep you updated.

Obviously, everything you do or don’t do is entirely your choice. But it should be a well-informed choice, right?

I’m not making a pitch to read this or watch that. By now, you probably already have your own habits of gathering your own news. Everyone in Student Media hopes we are a part of this.

My point is each of these media outlets is working together for you. We have been working for years to get to this point in collaboration. The technical word for this is convergence, which you may already know. The word isn’t important to you. The results, however, should be.

It’s not about cross-promotion. It’s not about increasing readership, viewership or hits on a Web site.

We’re doing this to improve our storytelling abilities. Student media have the capabilities to work together to give you all the news in the most informative, interesting and creative ways possible.

The semester is only beginning, and we already have some big projects ahead of us. Watch for our coverage of Black History Month, the Ohio primary election, the Undergraduate Student Government formation and election, the anniversary of the Iraq War and May 4.

However large these stories and series will be, they are by no means the only news we are planning. We will still give you our daily coverage. The only difference this semester is that you will have more to read, listen to and watch.

Convergence comes off as a buzzword to anyone outside of journalism circles. That’s fine; we understand that. Keep in mind, though, that it’s more than just jargon for us. It means more news, better storytelling and a way to keep you all better informed about what goes on at Kent State, the city, the county, the state and wherever else our coverage can reach, and how it will affect you.

Welcome back.

Bryan Wroten is a senior newspaper journalism major and the editor of the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].