Cover photo courtesy of Tim Bertelink on Wikimedia Commons
On Monday, February 20th, The Loveland Roar published an exclusive interview with the elusive Loveland Frogman. Immediately following, the paper witnessed a spike in their number of online readers. This has been the largest number of online readers since they launched their new website in August of 2022 and has set a new record for audience growth on a student news site.
The Loveland Roar revamped its website at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year in an effort to deliver more timely and topical news by being able to free its articles from the lengthy process of creating a physical newspaper. Although readers adore the physical newspaper, many students and staff have been hesitant to accept the new push by The Loveland Roar to better their website.
After the views on their online articles began to dwindle, The Loveland Roar began trying anything in order to bring back readers. From spamming teacher emails to hacking into LHSNN, nothing seemed to catch the reader's attention. Most of the articles that they were posting weren’t even getting a single glance from the shrinking number of people who actually took the time to view their site. None of the content they were publishing was just interesting enough to draw attention by itself. This all changed in February when The Loveland Roar published an exclusive article they had conducted with the Loveland Frogman, which had been captured and brought to the Cincinnati Zoo a week before on Monday, the 13th.
For this article, News Editor Jack Gerber (11) visited the Frogman’s exhibit in the middle of the night to avoid the curious masses. The Frogman, however, obviously wouldn’t speak to humans, so Gerber went undercover in a large frog costume with a giant bow on top, hoping that the Frogman would talk to what he believed was his own kind. This effort proved fruitful, as Gerber managed to record the Frogman’s in-depth and introspective life story. This article was published after an article detailing the initial arrest of the Frogman came out the previous day.
After publishing these articles, The Loveland Roar’s website saw a massive increase in the number of people visiting its website. In total, seven unique individuals visit their website every day, which is the highest number of daily online viewers that the publication has ever reached. On top of this, six new readers viewed the website the day that the article was published (the one consistent reader turned out to be Mr. Hutzel, the Journalism advisor).
Beyond just being a personal achievement, this is also a national record. Never before has an American student publication gained such a sudden jump in the number of new online viewers. Among the many hard-working student publications across America, The Loveland Roar has distinguished itself as one of the finest and most impactful. They actually almost passed the international record, which was set by the publication for a public school in London titled “Bit Strange, Innit?” This student publication reached eight new online readers in March of 2019 after it posted a deep, analytical article about the British crisis caused by the surplus of spices they had refrained from using in recipes.
Gerber spoke on The Loveland Roar’s success, saying with a tear of joy in his eye, “I’m so grateful for our fantastic readers. Everything we do to craft informative and important articles is for you. Thank you!”