Is anyone out there? Is anyone reading this? Probably not.

I am most likely talking to myself right now, and the only people that will read this will be Mr. White, my newspaper adviser, and an editor of this online newspaper.  Ever since VHS’s newspaper, The Fairviewer, went online, it has a significantly lower number of readers, according to the Google analytics information Mr. White receives.

This year, the decision was made to make the newspaper online, instead of publishing four print copies a year.  It was much less expensive to do it online, and since our generation is so much more more tech-savvy, this was a no-brainer, right?

Wrong.  “I like reading the articles, but I won’t’ go out of my way online for them” states senior Kristina Distaso about the online newspaper.

Seniors Shannon Garner and Dariush Taghavi agreed that they used to read the printed paper, but now they don’t read it online. 

Even teachers agree that they don’t read the online version.  English teacher Dr. Smith said she used to read the paper “cover to cover” and science Teacher Carl Cascone says ‘I didn’t even know the paper was online.” 

“I’m old school, I like newspapers” says phys ed teacher  Eric McElroy. Junior Mike Kapotis also agrees that he would rather have the printed version of last year, as opposed to the online version.   One of the things people said they would miss the most from the printer version was the traditional double-page spread in the June edition of the paper telling of all the seniors’ post-graduation plans.

Yet there is a glimmer of hope for the online version.  Dan Banks admits he reads it, only when he’s in it.  I also asked Senior Lou Capurso if he reads the online paper and his response was “yes, Isaac (Rubins) makes me read it.”

With all the work writing articles can be, I would at least like knowing someone is reading them, and it doesn’t seem that way right now.  So maybe next year, the online paper will have more luck attracting an audience.  Mr. White has also said that if attempts to draw a bigger audience fail, he may consider going back to a print version.  As for now, print seems to be more popular among VHS students and teachers.