San Francisco – Catholic World Report, an online news magazine published by Ignatius Press, launched a newly redesigned website this month. The improvements to the website feature a restructured layout specifically designed to enhance experience for readers who access the site on their mobile devices.
“I think both longtime and newer readers will enjoy the many improvements to the new Catholic World Report website, including an updated look, ease of navigation and immediate access to a wide range of new and relevant articles,” Catholic World Report editor Carl Olson said in a press release earlier this month. “Also, more than half of our readers use mobile devices or tablets to view the site, and they will find the new site much easier to view and navigate.”
In 2012, Catholic World Report switched from a printed magazine to an exclusively online publication. The previous site was over a decade old, and had limitations for readers, writers, and editors. “Posting articles was a bit tedious and we had very few options over the design, fonts, categories, graphics and a number of basic elements,” Olson explained. “After quite a bit of discussion of our main goals and what platform to use, we started getting into the specifics of design last summer.” The total redesigning of the website took just over a year to complete.
The biggest challenge? “Migrating all of the existing articles to the new site,” Olson said. The new website contains articles all the way back from 2008. Catholic World Report provides coverage of news that affects the Catholic Church around the world. It features interviews and articles with important Church voices and leaders, such as George Weigel, Father James V. Schall, SJ, and Bishop Robert Barron.
Catholics should be aware of news from around the world that is affecting their brothers and sisters in Christ. “Speaking as an American, I think it’s important that we, as Catholics, try to appreciate and understand better the universal, catholic nature of the Church by learning what we can about what is going on in Africa, China or Europe,” Olson explained. “Learning more about the joys and trials faced by the Church here on earth shouldn’t only encourage us to pray and help as best we can, but also will focus us more keenly on the life to come.”
Even more important is the way that Catholics receive news. It has become increasingly more necessary for Catholics to receive news from an Orthodox, Catholic perspective versus main stream news sources. “Generally speaking, the mainstream media in the West is either clueless or even antagonistic toward Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular,” Olson said. “So you often end up with reporting that is flawed or skewed. Of course, that’s not always the case, but it is more and more the case.”
This doesn’t mean that Catholics shouldn’t read and learn from main stream news sources, but if a story is about an issue that is complicated, Catholic World Report strives to put the story into context and provide an in-depth analysis of today’s issues.
“Catholics, of all people, should appreciate that news stories are not just about raw facts, but are narratives that all have, in some way, an eternal perspective.”
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