Behind the scenes on the Minaret

Walking by various wire racks filled with the slim yet not overlooked school newspaper the Minaret, you may wonder how this popular and even nationally recognized weekly gets in its place and in the hands of hundreds of students around campus.

A vast amount of work is done behind the scenes by the Minaret staff and organization. Along with a weekly editorial board meeting in their office (Vaughn 211) held on Fridays at 5 p.m, the team spends a lot of their own time working on the paper throughout the week.

Time is dedicated by all the groups who are part of the paper whether it’s the writers, photographers, or advertising team. However the editors spend a great deal of their time on the paper every day.

“Editors spend all afternoon and into the wee hours of the Wednesday morning making deadline. This includes story distribution, layout and editing. Charlie [Hambos] (editor) and I (asst. editor) spend every day in the office,” said Mel Steiner assistant editor to the Minaret. She followed by laughing and saying “I honestly couldn't tell you how much time we spent in here and quite frankly if someone were to tell me the number of hours, I think I'd be sick.”

The editors have the responsibility of coming up with and distributing stories to their staff, Where the writers responsibility includes gathering writing and submitting their stories on time.
All this hard work has also allowed for the Minaret to be recognized locally and nationally.

The Florida College Press Association awarded The Minaret the 1st place winner for “best college newspaper” in 2007 as well as 2008. The Minaret also won many other awards by this association in both those years.
“It’s pretty exciting to know that our small school has such an excellent newspaper, I think it makes students more aware of it and actually want to read it too,” said sophomore Kaitlin Hill.

Nevertheless, recently, UT’s small but prevailing newspaper has been named a finalist in the 2009 Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper Pacemaker contest; which is a national contest. “From what I've been told, The Pacemaker is like the Pulitzer of newspapers, said Steiner.

The Minaret is running against 25 other college newspaper finalists in the “four year non-daily” category. Its competitors range from some of the top universities in the U.S. The winners will be announced in October at a National college media convention in Texas.

Along with many newspapers all over the U.S. the Minaret has also made the decision a few years back to go online. Boasting an appealing and professional accompanying website theminaretonline.com acts as another way for the UT community to access campus’ latest news. This website is also improving on the regular as well.

The website hosts the same stories and information as the newspaper copy, however using a webpage allows the staff to “add things only applicable to a website that can enhance a story, like hyperlinks, video, mp3, etc. We update it daily, as breaking news can happen at any point. But for the most part, we change out old stories after each deadline,” Steiner said.

The Minaret staff is also able to attend the ACP National Convention every year. “Last year it was in San Diego. This year, I believe it's in Phoenix. It's a really cool opportunity to meet other young journalists, photographers and designers from across the nation whom are in the same position as we are every week, hectically scrambling around to make deadline,” said Steiner.

The Minaret has been University of Tampa’s student-run news source since 1932, and the staff is looking to always improve and accomplish more things regarding the paper itself. Aside from their main goal to deliver news whether its trend stories, breaking news or entertainment they’re always looking to get photographers on the scene said Steiner.

Gaining a large audience appeal has been a main goal as well for the Minaret staff. The Minaret has improved and changed the types of stories they publish, how things are run and the overall design of the paper.

“The newspaper is very entertaining and also appealing to students because it’s written by students for students. That way the stories covered are definitely going to be interesting,” UT Junior Jennifer Carson said.

Changes occur because there are always new people joining the team as well as others who graduate. There is also a new advisor for the Minaret this year Dr. Stephanie Tripp. The Minaret recently filled up many positions that were left open and “are now starting to get back on [their] feet.”