Dear readers,

The Temple News has spent the last 103 years serving the Temple University community. In recent years, we have stepped up to the plate to cover major national stories like a union strike, the resignation of a president, the death of another, an NCAA gambling investigation and the death of a campus police officer.

That coverage has been recognized with prestegious college media awards at both the state and national level. We are proud of the work we have done and believe it ranks among the best college reporting in the nation.

But while completing our mission of serving the Temple community, I noticed one glaring hole in our coverage — the surrounding community that calls the North Central neighborhood home. For years, The Temple News has stayed true to only picking up stories that falls in our “coverage zone.” This thinking hasn’t allowed us to tackle important stories in a community that needs coverage.

TTN Plus aims to increase our coverage in the community Temple exists in. Through data-driven projects and investigations, TTN Plus will allow the TTN staff to devote more time and resources to producing high-quality journalism for the residents of North Philadelphia. In addition to our community coverage, TTN Plus will house more in-depth coverage into the Temple community. TTN Plus allows our staff to focus on deeper university-related investigations, student body polls, data-driven content and other special reporting projects.

The Temple News is always looking for ways to inovate and expand our coverage for the better. We are excited to devote more time and resources to report on important topics in a community that exists in a news desert. We are hiring more reporters, pouring more funds into our investigative journalism desk and making our community reporting a fixture of what The Temple News is.

We have a lot of exciting projects to come that we are so excited to share. We hope TTN Plus is the beginning of a long, successful chapter of community reporting at The Temple News.

— Samuel O’Neal, 103rd Editor in Chief of The Temple News