Staff Editorial: After The Cougar’s first year of printing weekly, more changes ahead

After many labored hours of consideration, The Cougar Editorial Board has decided that it’s time for yet another transition.

That’s right, readers — The Cougar is officially becoming a monthly newspaper. Now, don’t jump to conclusions. This isn’t because we’re looking to shirk ourselves of the hard work necessary to keep a weekly print, daily web publication going. We eat up work like it’s our favorite home-cooked meal! It’s just, between you and us, we really think that the readership would benefit more from a monthly publication. It’s what all the latest magazines are doing, right? Publishing monthly would give us even more time to take in-depth, investigative looks at what’s happening in the UH community.

And let’s not even think about all of the Superbowl BBQ’s, Easter Sunday dinners, July Fourth cookouts and other social events we’d have time to attend, because we aren’t even considering our social lives in this decision. So what if our monthly deadline will make more time for anniversaries, birthdays, dinners, sleep and general well-being? Trust us when we say that we couldn’t care less about it. We’re purely looking to serve you, reader, and that’s why this decision has been a tough one to announce. We can’t wait to churn out more researched longform content, and we truly believe that this monthly deadline will help us achieve that.

Update — Friday, March 27, 6:14 p.m.: Assistant news editor and editor in chief-elect Glissette Santana informed us that her class schedule is just “impossible to balance with a monthly deadline,” and that she would rather be able to see her friends and family “more than once every six months.” A motion to change The Cougar’s deadline from monthly to quarterly was approved with unanimous support.

Update — Friday, March 27, 9:37 p.m.: Creative director Chris Shelton received a text “from his mother” asking him to meet her in Midtown as soon as possible “for a family gathering.” Shelton insisted that this text wasn’t from his girlfriend and said that repeated “family stuff like this” would prevent him and others from producing a top-notch quarterly product. A motion to move to a biannual deadline was approved with unanimous support.

Update — Sunday, March 29, 3:42 p.m.: A visitor to the newsroom mentioned that “it’s a really beautiful day outside.” Confused, The Cougar Editorial Board called the comment one of the strongest story ledes they had seen in a while.

A motion to start printing annually was approved with unanimous support so editors of The Cougar could have a full calendar year to discover just what exactly a “beautiful day outside” is.

— The Cougar Editorial Board