The Atherton Aerial has been around since 1924, the year Atherton was founded. The very first issue was published that same year, on October 28. Since then, the Aerial has published newspapers, and eventually moved to a collection of stories in a magazine.
The new website for the Aerial was started by the Journalism class of the 24-25 school year. The journalism class was previously taught by Mr. Rhinehart until this school year, and now is taught by Mrs. Rice. It is now part of the Media Arts pathway.
“Journalism is always something that I’ve enjoyed. I did it in high school, and it was kind of my passion. I worked on the yearbook in high school and the newspaper in college, and it fits in the media pathway,” says Mrs. Rice.
Since the class is now a part of the Media Arts pathway, Mrs. Rice decided to change the Aerial from a newspaper to a website. Students do not have to be in the pathway to join, but having the experience will help students.
“Students need a place that gives them the information right away, [and] that they don’t have to dig for it,” Mrs. Rice says. The Aerial has been turned into a website to help students get news and stories quickly. The new website has everything all in one place, such as announcements or school news.
The Aerial magazines did not have many news stories in them, most issues were just a collection of stories that previous students wrote. Only 4 issues were published a year, which required many months of work. Now the website can be updated daily, stories are much shorter, and they can be published anytime.
“It’s definitely easier now that it’s digital. Because you just press a few buttons and then it’s ready to go. Whereas last year, it was very much like there were a lot more steps to it,” says Emma Yung, the current Editor in Chief. Publishing stories on the website takes much less time than it did previously, and staff members of the Aerial can publish and work on more than one story at a time.
“It’s a lot less work writing them, of course. Setting up the website and figuring out the process was kind of difficult, but now that we have our flow of things, it’s getting easier than it was,” says Yung.
For the first few months of the school year, the website was created and designed by Sofia Rappa. Now that the website is mostly finished, stories are being published, and the website is finally public.
