ATLANTA – The Maroon Tiger Student Media Group (MTSMG), the Atlanta University Center’s leading news source in collaboration with Julian Street, CEO of J-Street Branding will launch Project Y-Axis on April 6, 2015.
Project Y-Axis (PYA) is a gateway for young professionals and graduate students to engage in critical conversations and share their perspective on race, politics, culture, and activism in an open forum. PYA is the social media arm for an interface that will be built into www.maroontiger.com. The interface will be a blog site that will allow young Black people to submit their work, and on-site publishing will be rolling. PYA’s primary goals are:
Community News Sharing: MTSMG will use the platform to encourage and engage subscribers to foster a community-oriented site for Millennials by Milliennials.
Intellectually Driven: MTSMG is recruiting young professionals and/or college professionals who have an interest in writing about the totality of their experiences.
Showcase thought leading Millennials: This project will serve as a venue for young Black voices to ascend the axis and shift the conversation based on their response to past and present that plague, or progress, the dreams of young, Black Millennials.
Project Y-Axis has set an agenda in an innovative way, untethered from the constraints of other student-fueled media spaces. “We’ll drive a lively, real-time conversation enriched by the country’s best Black writers and thinkers on the subjects that animate politics and power,” said Darren Martin, editor-in-chief of The Maroon Tiger. “We’ve always tackled national issues in a conscious way while staying committed to informing to inspire civic, social and personal responsibility and renewal in the Black community.”
“If we have learned one thing in the past three years about what students want to read about, it is this: it is having their stories told – in their voices, unapologetically,” said Jared Loggins, managing editor of The Maroon Tiger. “We believe what Project Y-Axis will bring to our audiences is even more essential in today’s every-changing news environment.”
MTSMG has acquired the Twitter handle @Morehouse1867 that has transitioned into @ProjectYAxis in order to target the millennial professional who are 1-7 years removed from undergrad under the handle @ProjectYAxis. This acquisition is an extension of that mission created for individuals who may not want to hear certain campus based news because they are now alums or professionals in their career. PYA aims to reach is the audience who leaves us in undergrad, but are in this ‘holding space’ of undergrad adolescence and full adulthood.
Project Y-Axis is coordinated by two award-winning students on MTSMG: Danyelle R. Carter leads the team as project coordinator, and Kailyn Brooks serves as assistant project coordinator; both joined MTSMG in 2014, which won numerous accolades, including Best HBCU Newspaper, HBCU Media Advocacy; 1st Place, General Excellence, 1st Place, Best Campus Community Service–Features and 3rd Place, Layout and Design at the Georgia College Press Association’s Press Institute during their tenure. Carter and Brooks both serve as associate to MTSMG’s public relations and marketing team. Carter also serves as the President of Black Public Relations Student Society at Spelman College. Together they will steer a team to launch the inaugural marketing campaign to introduce Project Y-Axis to Morehouse College and national landscape.
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This post originally appeared on The Maroon Tiger.
