Arkansas Newswire to Replace Daily Headlines, Adding Versatility, Agility to News Operation

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas will update its dissemination of campus news with a new Web site and e-mail service, Arkansas Newswire, beginning Wednesday, Jan. 20.

“Arkansas Newswire will be the primary resource for anyone who wants to know what’s happening on the University of Arkansas campus,” said Tysen Kendig, associate vice chancellor for university relations. “The new format will also allow readers to see, hear and read the news that matters most to them.”

The new site allows the addition of videos, slide shows and audio packages as well as a better system for disseminating stories. Stories and announcements submitted to Arkansas Newswire can be fed to a variety of groups. A story about engineering research being conducted by graduate students, for instance, would be fed to news pages about the College of Engineering, about the Graduate School, about student news and about research.

“One of the reasons we pursued this revision of the university’s news service is that the nature of news dissemination outside our campus is changing radically,” Kendig said. “Many media, especially at the national level, have reduced or eliminated their coverage of higher education and research. Meanwhile, the rise of social networks has allowed news to spread virally. Arkansas Newswire was designed with those changes in mind.”

University of Arkansas stories can be added to Facebook or Twitter at the click of a button. University videos can be pulled into the site immediately from YouTube. More personalization of the news is planned.

“Within the next several months, we plan to allow users to personalize the news that they get from Arkansas Newswire, both what they see online and what arrives in their inbox,” said Chris Nixon, director of communication technology for the office of university relations. “Readers who use news aggregators will also be able to draw university news from several feeds.”

The Arkansas Newswire e-mail will include stories published during the previous 24 hours and links to upcoming events.

Faculty, staff and students are automatically subscribed to Arkansas Newswire as part of their campus e-mail service. Similarly, anyone from off campus who is subscribed to the Daily Headlines e-mail service will now get Arkansas Newswire in its place. On Wednesday, Jan. 20, both the Arkansas Newswire e-mail and the Daily Headlines e-mail will be sent, but only the Arkansas Newswire will be sent after that date if the delivery works properly.

As with the old Daily Headlines site, units on campus will be able to submit stories and events to Arkansas Newswire via submission forms at the top left corner of the Web site, but the submission forms have been streamlined to make them easier and more efficient.

“As always, we encourage offices across campus to submit stories about departmental honors, promotions, newly added services and news of interest to the campus,” said Gina King, director of news and editorial operations. “We’ve been experimenting with the new site for more than two months, eliminating glitches and thinking of new features, but we want to encourage users to feel free to suggest improvements too.”

Suggestions can be sent to newswire@uark.edu.

In addition to other new features, the site includes an online newsroom to provide media with quick links to university information and services.

King said the Daily Headlines site will be maintained during a transition period and then archived with the University Libraries. Stories archived in Daily Headlines will continue to be available in the Arkansas Newswire archives as well.