Ypulse Youth Website Profile: Shift
The latest installment in our Ypulse Youth Website Profile series is a review of Shift, a Gen-Y focused news site launched earlier this summer as part of the ongoing reporting project from News 21, a national initiative among journalism schools.
What it is… a hub for news and feature stories aimed towards a “diverse generation confronting an uncertain future” compiled by a group of 13 graduate fellows working at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. From the “About” page on the site: “We will explore how young people all over the country are dealing with decisions around the issues of career, community, identity and relationships.”
Who it’s for… College students and twentysomethings, particularly those with an interest in their generation’s issues.
What works for us… Given the mission statement stated above, it should be no surprise that the territory the site treads (sample: “How the Internet has changed the way a generation thinks, feels, expresses,” and the questions it probes, “How do you make young people care about personal finance?”) is right up Ypulse’s alley. To those with an interest in understanding, communicating and potentially connecting with Gen Y, the research and opinions of these young, aspiring journalists are invaluable. Even more impressive is News 21’s general project of creating a national conversation with other schools across the country, experimenting with curriculum, and providing hands-on experience to help “better teach, challenge and prepare the next generation of news industry leaders for an increasingly complex world.” We look forward to seeing what else they do.
Challenges… In some ways the challenges are the same as what works. Because while the content and the subject matter obviously appeal to me as the managing editor of a youth media and marketing site (as it would for anyone with similar interests and curiosity about Millennials), as a twentysomething and relatively recent college student, I’m not sure whether I would have been drawn to the site as an independent news source (or even found it!). Of course, I am as concerned as the next Millennial about those broad aspects of twentysomething life — my career, my identity, my relationships, etc. — but would I go seek out serious feature articles on my own time? Probably not. As a student, I’d be much more receptive to these articles if I found them on the homepage of my college newspaper or aggregated on either a more general online news publication like Wiretap or a much more specific site like The Root (both listed on the site’s blogroll). I’d also feel more inclined to explore if the site, or rather my experience of the site was more interactive — presented in the context of an academic course or some type of campus-affiliated activity. In other words, although I’m impressed by the well-written pieces and the innovative use of new media, but I’m much more curious in those aforementioned next steps — the curriculum and hands-on experience.
As far as the general format of the site, I love the aesthetic in terms of fonts, graphics and design, but organizationally I would have liked to see the homepage feature recent articles from the different topics or possibly from the different forms of media on the site as opposed to the general header of “recent Shifts.”
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