New Website Change-Up to Focus on Columbia Athletics
2/26/2019 8:00:00 AM | General, Giving
Launched in early February, the Change-Up offers student-written content featuring Columbia Athletics and campus culture.
NEW YORK — Columbia Athletics is now being covered by a new online student website called "Change-Up." Since going live in early February, Change-Up offers news, features, podcasts, opinion pieces and analysis, all with a focus on Columbia University Athletics. Change-Up has a staff of 18 Columbia University students, the content is accessible, free of charge and written and edited exclusively by Columbia students. Change-Up can be found at this link.
GoColumbiaLions sat down with Change-Up Editor-in-Chief Ethan DeLehman, who gave his thoughts and perspective on the new blog:
1. What prompted your group to create the new website Change-Up?
DeLehman: The Change-Up developed out of our shared desire to alter the way that we, as writers, covered Columbia athletics, as well as branch out and cover a greater variety of content. For us, this meant more engaging and creative narrative features that tackled stories ranging from—in sports—individual player profiles to analyses of how different on-campus teams develop a sense of culture and community. It meant focusing our efforts on drawing readers' attention to the stories taking place in the Columbia community that do not get told, and those within athletics that cannot be captured by the box-score. Most of all, it meant fostering an environment for reporters, editors, and writers to feel comfortable pursuing the story ideas that they felt most needed to be told. The Change-Up, above all is, is about creating a strong community of journalists and allowing them to tell compelling stories.
2. What are the goals for coverage and specifically sports coverage for Change-Up?
DeLehman: When a new reader visits The Change-Up's home page for the first time, they will be greeted by five subdivisions of content: sports, culture, photo, essays, and in the center of the homepage: podcasts. The overall goal of the site is far-reaching: We are trying to capture as much of the Columbia and Morningside Heights communities as possible, and do so through the writing of some of Columbia's most talented writers. The goal with any piece published on the site is that the reader will walk away from it feeling informed, entertained, and curious to learn more, whether that be about a Columbia team or about an aspect of campus culture.
For sports coverage, this influences coverage in a few key ways. Firstly, there are no strict previews or game-stories on the website. We are, first and foremost, a site that produces features. What this means in practice is that all sports content will range from 750 - 2500 words, and will have one of two goals: analysis, or crafting a narrative. Looking at the site now and the first batch of content which was produced, we have our unique statistics model that predicts the outcome of men's basketball games, we have an analysis column discussing that team's style of play, we have a narrative on the spectacular season of women's basketball's Riley Casey, and a piece on the fencing team's unique approach to competition. Two analysis, two narrative. This is what readers can expect for sports coverage.
3. What kind of overall content can a reader expect to find in Change-Up?
DeLehman: I touched on this in the answer to the previous question, but the content is widespread. In sports, you can expect analysis and narrative work. In culture, you can expect reported pieces having to do with campus or the local community. Beyond that, you can also expect articles analyzing and discussing culture—music, film, television—as told by some of Columbia's most articulate voices. In photo, we will have photo-specific content, dedicated to telling stories through a visual medium. In essays, we have personal narratives written in a more literary tone. And in podcasts, we'll have five podcasts launched over the next month, each of which takes on a particular niche. (Look out for our sports podcast, Score Lions Score, co-hosted by myself and fellow staffer Zach Miller.)
4. What would you want Columbia Lions fans and Columbia student-athletes and coaches to know about Change-Up?
DeLehman: At the end of the day, our goal with sports coverage is to produce honest, compelling coverage that helps shine a light on the variety of things that happen within Columbia athletics. Beyond just that, all staffers for The Change-Up are hoping to build strong working relationships with all coaches, players, and personnel. And hopefully over time we develop a firm sense of trust between subject and reporter through those relationships. That being said, our goal as reporters will always be to tell the truth, and to describe and depict the teams honestly. Occasionally this will take the form of criticism, but our writers will never misrepresent any player or athlete, and a story will never be written for the sole purpose of garnering clicks and creating drama.
5. What are your long-term goals for the new website?
DeLehman: The end goal is for The Change-Up to emerge as a sustained, successful student publication on campus, and the go-to place for in-depth coverage of Columbia athletics and culture. We would like to become Columbia's version of The Ringer or The Athletic, helping expand the conversations being had about sports on campus.
GoColumbiaLions sat down with Change-Up Editor-in-Chief Ethan DeLehman, who gave his thoughts and perspective on the new blog:
1. What prompted your group to create the new website Change-Up?
DeLehman: The Change-Up developed out of our shared desire to alter the way that we, as writers, covered Columbia athletics, as well as branch out and cover a greater variety of content. For us, this meant more engaging and creative narrative features that tackled stories ranging from—in sports—individual player profiles to analyses of how different on-campus teams develop a sense of culture and community. It meant focusing our efforts on drawing readers' attention to the stories taking place in the Columbia community that do not get told, and those within athletics that cannot be captured by the box-score. Most of all, it meant fostering an environment for reporters, editors, and writers to feel comfortable pursuing the story ideas that they felt most needed to be told. The Change-Up, above all is, is about creating a strong community of journalists and allowing them to tell compelling stories.
2. What are the goals for coverage and specifically sports coverage for Change-Up?
DeLehman: When a new reader visits The Change-Up's home page for the first time, they will be greeted by five subdivisions of content: sports, culture, photo, essays, and in the center of the homepage: podcasts. The overall goal of the site is far-reaching: We are trying to capture as much of the Columbia and Morningside Heights communities as possible, and do so through the writing of some of Columbia's most talented writers. The goal with any piece published on the site is that the reader will walk away from it feeling informed, entertained, and curious to learn more, whether that be about a Columbia team or about an aspect of campus culture.
For sports coverage, this influences coverage in a few key ways. Firstly, there are no strict previews or game-stories on the website. We are, first and foremost, a site that produces features. What this means in practice is that all sports content will range from 750 - 2500 words, and will have one of two goals: analysis, or crafting a narrative. Looking at the site now and the first batch of content which was produced, we have our unique statistics model that predicts the outcome of men's basketball games, we have an analysis column discussing that team's style of play, we have a narrative on the spectacular season of women's basketball's Riley Casey, and a piece on the fencing team's unique approach to competition. Two analysis, two narrative. This is what readers can expect for sports coverage.
3. What kind of overall content can a reader expect to find in Change-Up?
DeLehman: I touched on this in the answer to the previous question, but the content is widespread. In sports, you can expect analysis and narrative work. In culture, you can expect reported pieces having to do with campus or the local community. Beyond that, you can also expect articles analyzing and discussing culture—music, film, television—as told by some of Columbia's most articulate voices. In photo, we will have photo-specific content, dedicated to telling stories through a visual medium. In essays, we have personal narratives written in a more literary tone. And in podcasts, we'll have five podcasts launched over the next month, each of which takes on a particular niche. (Look out for our sports podcast, Score Lions Score, co-hosted by myself and fellow staffer Zach Miller.)
4. What would you want Columbia Lions fans and Columbia student-athletes and coaches to know about Change-Up?
DeLehman: At the end of the day, our goal with sports coverage is to produce honest, compelling coverage that helps shine a light on the variety of things that happen within Columbia athletics. Beyond just that, all staffers for The Change-Up are hoping to build strong working relationships with all coaches, players, and personnel. And hopefully over time we develop a firm sense of trust between subject and reporter through those relationships. That being said, our goal as reporters will always be to tell the truth, and to describe and depict the teams honestly. Occasionally this will take the form of criticism, but our writers will never misrepresent any player or athlete, and a story will never be written for the sole purpose of garnering clicks and creating drama.
5. What are your long-term goals for the new website?
DeLehman: The end goal is for The Change-Up to emerge as a sustained, successful student publication on campus, and the go-to place for in-depth coverage of Columbia athletics and culture. We would like to become Columbia's version of The Ringer or The Athletic, helping expand the conversations being had about sports on campus.
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