Shrouded in utmost secrecy, Dragón Digital appears on the digital journalism scene. It is a website created by students and professors that work in the School of Communication at San Jorge University and will be the official newspaper of the university.
After several months of work, this online website is finally a reality. However, only a few people know about it. What exactly is Dragón Digital ? Jorge Miguel Rodríguez, Assistant Dean of Journalism, says that it “is a means of expression within the ideology of San Jorge University, which includes students, professors and alumni,” and he also adds that the web will try to reflect what happens in USJ, “the typical things of university life, like researching, teaching or extracurricular activities.”
In addition, Rodríguez explains that the main objective is that “students can practise like real multimedia journalists, and they will be able to dominate all of the possibilities offered by new technologies,” something that will help students become familiar with the current journalism reality.
In this respect, Dragon Digital may be recognized in the future as a media outlet where students can do an internship. This is the plan of José Juan Verón, the project coordinator, and he also says that the website “will not have news only about the university,” but it will be a window “to show the best works made by students according to quality and timely criteria.” People who collaborate in it will have freedom to experiment with different ways to publish information; podcasts, image galleries, video…“Our limit is our imagination,” concludes Verón.
Moreover, Antonio Lite is responsible for the technical part. He has the job of implementing a content management system and to configure it to be an easy-to-use tool. “The website is based on WordPress, but with an aesthetic similar to an online newspaper, although it is not finished yet,” says Lite. This web will be divided in different sections, and one of them will be dedicated to promote blogs from other subjects in order to get a greater impact on the Internet.
All in all, Dragon Digital is an example of ingenuity: it is not necessary to spend a lot of money to start a good project that allows students to enter the world of journalism. Only those with initiative and strong writing and reporting skills can succeed at this job.
Texto y fotografía: Raúl Sierra
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