I always love a healthy dose of competition. However, my competitive personality often leads to an unhealthy situation when it creates unnecessary stress. In a school of over 4,500 students who compete for the attention of a limited number of coaches and sponsors, we often lose sight of the advantages that cooperation can provide.

Case in point: The four organizations within the CHS communications department-CHTV, HiLite, Pinnacle and WHJE-have always competed for your attention. Throughout the past couple years, however, we have shared a few staff members with one another and realized the potential that cooperation holds in store. Imagine this: After the first football game of the season against Lawrence Central on Friday, you want to listen to a broadcast of the game online and show a clip of the game-winning touchdown to your friends. Afterwards you want to view photos of the starting lineup and read a story about the expectations for the upcoming game against Columbus North. Simple. Just pull up four different websites that will each provide one of these features and click around until you finally find everything you need. For a generation that expects information to appear within seconds, doesn’t that sound just a bit too time-consuming?

Therefore, I’m excited to introduce to you the  Greyhound  Media Network (GMN). The four separate organizations within the CHS communications department (CHTV, HiLite, Pinnacle and WHJE) have united to form a network that will serve as your one-stop source for news. This combination of separate news sources to form one cohesive entity is called media convergence.

In 1996, The Indianapolis Star and WTHR (Channel 13) partnered together to share news with their readers and viewers and promote each other. At this time, the American Press Institute counted only 51 convergence partnerships in the United States. By 2005, half of television news stations across the country had partnered up with newspapers.

At the beginning, WTHR started a feature called “Tomorrow’s Headline Tonight” on its 11 p.m. newscast and previewed the upcoming issue of The Indianapolis Star that released the following morning. As time progressed, the two organizations focused primarily on news gathering rather than promotion. From here on out, the HiLite will embrace this trend and assume a more cooperative relationship  with  the  rest of the communications department through the GMN. We recognize that  our stories and  photos may not always provide the most effective form of the news you seek. Other times, we do.

So what does this mean for you? It means you can access both comprehensive coverage and different mediums of news all in one convenient location. By combining our strengths to create a single news source for our viewers, readers and listeners, the GMN ensures that your news will increase in both depth and efficiency. Sports news will appear exclusively on the GMN Sports website to which HiLite reporters and photographers will contribute. A single Twitter account will represent GMN Sports and feature content from all four organizations. We will also team up to cover significant events such as Homecoming. Forgot to pick up a Guest Form for the dance? Print one off the GMN website. Want to watch the Homecoming Court step out of the convertibles? We got it. Want to listen to opinions about the spirit days? Check.

But rest assured, the HiLite will still maintain its distinct identity. We will continue to distribute print issues each month and update our  independent  website  on  a daily basis. Only our reporters will write for the HiLite publication and website.

But by contributing to the GMN, we can provide more comprehensive news at your fingertips in the most effective form possible. So keep in mind throughout high school that competition is not the only motivation for progress. Sometimes cooperation and initiative will do the trick.