Roseburg High School

As many of you know, Roseburg High School's Student newspaper called The Orange R is very known and respected in Roseburg Oregon, but many don't know the past of the Orange R and how much it has changed over the years. The newspaper was established in 1915 by Rosa Parrot, as stated in a Roseburg High School newspaper article in the 1970s.

I had the privilege and opportunity to interview the old Orange R Adviser. Many of you know her as Mrs. Bartlett. Mrs Bartlett was the Orange R Adviser in the years 1999- 2007. We talked about many things in the interview, but mainly how much media has changed journalism from her point of view, after her years as the Adviser and considering the modern times of 2025.

One of the questions I asked was how the media in general has changed since the time span she was Advisor. Mrs. Bartlett said, “Print media was obsolete.” Not many people wanted to subscribe to print work, because print work was way more challenging than it is today. Newspapers back then were way more arduous; they in fact required way more face-to-face contact and working with your hands. A lot of hard work, energy, sweat and creativity went into the print, because it was done by hand by cutting, gluing, and pressing, using X-ACTO knives to make the pages and print them. Using old technology and tools from back in the 90s gave you a chance to put more of a flair into your work, and form a better dynamic with the newspaper where you could actually see all of the hard work going into the newspaper.

On the basis of technology in the time period of 1999-2007, older technology was used that we tend to not use today: for example, old boxier computers and models were often an ideal part of media within that time frame.

Other things in older technology used at the time were old boxy cameras, often held over the shoulder, which made it a tiresome task because of the sheer heaviness to the camera's build. The computers were often way slower, which impacted the time print could be made. There were also old programs on computers that could help make prints for media, but it was harder to use than modern day programs that can be clicked on and instantly be loaded into the computer.

Considering both modern and old-school technology, both have pros and cons, but which one is better can certainly be the question for most people. Mrs. Bartlett’s opinion on this topic was, “Not one over the other.” It was harder to produce the newspaper when she was the adviser, but past tech was fun because you got to put your own unique spin on the newspaper, and you had more freedom to do it, because you were primarily working with your hands by scrapbooking, collaging, gluing, and cutting out the newspapers. While I was interviewing Mrs. Bartlett I also learned many other things like controversies, and things that had to be learned within the media experience, such as how the controversy happened. In Mrs Bartlett's second year there was a mascot controversy about the Indian mascot for the high school. The mascot has always been sort of a touchy subject because of its cultural history with Roseburg high school, and she wrote a piece about the mascot which wasn’t intended to be satire. Not enough details were known about the mascot, and the story wasn't well liked or received well because of the lack of background information about the mascot. But within all of that, there was a lesson learned so the same mistakes wouldn't be made.

The one take away that Mrs. Bartlett wants every journalist and writer in media to carry on throughout media history is the protections that are put in to help and protect journalists and writers called “freedom of the press.” It is very important that journalists and writers are able to feel safe by printing and expressing their ideas, without the fear of censorship or having ideas shut down, so there is no judgement within journalism