Established in August 2016, the Delta Digital News Service primarily serves Northeast Arkansas. It originates around four goals:

1. Providing an educational experience while striving to capture the essence of the region’s culture and character, and candidly discussing undercovered issues and subjects.
2. Promoting community discourse in the Delta by telling insightful stories reflecting the concerns, diversity and energy of the area.
3. Investigating policy effects on regional lives.
4. Creating content partnerships with news outlets.

FAQ

What is DDNS? A working news lab environment for graduate and undergraduate students that feeds content to news organizations of all sizes and types. The lab serves as an anchor project for Arkansas State University’s School of Media and Journalism multimedia journalism program.

Why? Students gain real-world experience in a laboratory setting, i.e. they pitch ideas, research, interview, then tell the stories in a variety of media formats. The experience along with their work will help them in a competitive job market.

News outlets can use the work with proper attribution (see here). This provides insights and perspectives from the 18-24 year-old demographic.

Where? Residing in the largest city in Northeast Arkansas, the Delta Digital News Service primarily covers the Jonesboro-Paragould metropolitan area, i.e. more than 160,000 residents.

Who? A-State students at various stages of the multimedia journalism program can hone their journalistic storytelling skills.

How? Students in media courses may submit relevant class content focusing on community and regional issues. A-State-centric content should be submitted to The Herald, ASU-TV or RedWolf Radio.

Students strive for accuracy and fairness, and submit updates via social media using the hashtag #DDNS.

When? Material will be published the moment fit for distribution.