5 things to know about Jane Wester, Daily Tar Heel editor-in-chief candidate

On Saturday, The Daily Tar Heel will select a new editor-in-chief. Jane Wester is the university editor and has spent six semesters at the DTH.

1. She is extremely dedicated to the DTH.

Wester has worked on the university desk all of the six semesters that she’s been a student at UNC.

Her first year she was a staff writer, her second an assistant editor and this year she has served as the university editor.

“I was that dork who read (the DTH) senior year of high school,” Wester said.

She felt the editor-in-chief at the time presented the DTH as a public service.

“I wanted to be a part of that,” she said.

2. As editor-in-chief, Wester hopes to make diversity a priority at the DTH.

“We need more individuals who aren’t journalism majors, who aren’t from North Carolina, people that aren’t interested in only becoming a reporter or a photographer,” said Bradley Saacks, The Daily Tar Heel’s director of enterprise.

“You need to represent the community you live in.”

He believes that with Wester as editor, the DTH will do just that.

3. Wester wants the DTH to have a closer relationship with the community.

Instead of desk editors going to two mandatory workshops a semester, she wants them to meet with key sources.

“I want them to know how much we care about it,” she said.

“The city editors care so much about the city and should have this connection to the people leading the city, who also care so much about the city,” she said.

Wester wants The Daily Tar Heel to be an integral part of the community. She wants to create a discourse of compassion between the staff and the key sources that are so essential to the content published.

4. Jane cares about the community within the DTH just as much as the community surrounding it.

The DTH office is more than just a workplace. It is a place for friendship, camaraderie and understanding.

“What we really enjoyed was feeling like we were a part of something,” University staff writer Colleen Moir recalled from her first year.

As a leader in the office, Wester will “make sure everyone is included; make sure everyone is brought in to the family,” Moir said.

5. One of Wester’s major goals as editor-in-chief will be to make digital stories more accessible.

Wester sees the website as too confusing for the user. She wants to concentrate all similar content, so that when readers do get lost, they get lost in a good way—spending time reading about what they are interested in, not frustrated for not being able to find what they want.

Also, since we are millennials who love #digital content, I feel that it is my duty to inform you that Wester loves Beyoncé.

When asked to comment she said, “Yeah. She’s queen.”

university@dailytarheel.com