Beyond InFlight: What Foothill High School (Pleasanton) Readers Are Missing on Statewide News
Foothill High School (Pleasanton)'s InFlight is doing something most outside outlets can't: covering campus life from the inside, day to day, produced by the school newspaper staff.
Related: Beyond UHS News: What Ukiah High School Readers Are Missing on Statewide News · Beyond the campus newspaper: What Napa Valley College Readers Are Missing on Statewide News
What a campus paper generally isn't built to do is cover everything happening around it: the statewide legislation that affects school funding and student rights, regional breaking news, or live public safety information a campus community might need in the moment. That's a different job — the one CALWIRE is built for.
What InFlight does well
A the school newspaper staff paper has something CALWIRE doesn't have and shouldn't try to replicate: a reporter's actual presence on campus. Coverage of student government, clubs, sports, and campus life at Foothill High School (Pleasanton) is going to be more detailed and more accurate coming from people who are there every day.
Where CALWIRE fills a different gap
Statewide coverage. CALWIRE covers all of California — the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley — so state-level stories that affect a campus show up here even when they're outside what a single-campus paper can track.
Live public safety tools. A live police and fire scanner feed and real-time traffic camera access are built directly into the site, which a campus newsroom generally isn't set up to provide continuously.
Published on a different clock. A campus paper works around an academic calendar; CALWIRE's wire desk and staff desk publish continuously, making it a reasonable second tab open alongside a campus paper rather than a replacement for it.
More California local news comparisons
This is one piece in an ongoing CALWIRE series looking at how California readers can round out their local news diet. Related reads: CALWIRE vs. GV Wire and CALWIRE vs. Front Page Index.
See also: Beyond the campus newspaper: What Crafton Hills College Readers Are Missing on Statewide News · Beyond the campus newspaper: What San Bernardino Valley College Readers Are Missing on Statewide News
Frequently asked
Is CALWIRE affiliated with InFlight or Foothill High School (Pleasanton)?
No. CALWIRE is an independently run California news site with no affiliation to Foothill High School (Pleasanton) or its student publications.
Should I stop reading InFlight and read CALWIRE instead?
No — they cover different things. InFlight is the better source for what's actually happening on campus; CALWIRE is built for statewide news, live scanner and traffic tools, and coverage beyond any one campus.
The bottom line: InFlight and CALWIRE aren't competing for the same story. One covers Foothill High School (Pleasanton) closely, from the inside; the other covers the rest of California around it, live. Reading both gives a more complete picture than either one alone.