A new decade brings with it new leadership for The Daily Tar Heel.
Online Managing Editor Emily Siegmund and I, Managing Editor Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, are now co-editors-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel after former Editor-in-Chief Maddy Arrowood resigned for personal reasons at the beginning of the semester.
Although leadership has changed, the core mission of the paper remains the same: to question institutions and deliver the truth to our readers. In the spring, the DTH will continue to emphasize its commitment to accuracy, balance and fairness, the principles that make us valuable to our community. Only through exercising these principles will we continue to bring our readers the news they need to live as informed citizens of the Chapel Hill and Orange County area.
We are honored to be trusted to lead The Daily Tar Heel during this unexpected transition, and we will do our best to continue to uphold the values and quality of work that has made the DTH an esteemed paper in college journalism.
Emily and I hope to bring our personal, professional and community-driven goals to the paper throughout the next semester. We aim to expand our election and local government coverage, as we recognize that The Daily Tar Heel is also a major news source for the surrounding Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, not just the University.
In the spring we are taking on a project with the Sharif Durhams Leadership Program, a group we created to cultivate the talent of our writers of color. We realize that as the student-led newspaper of a primarily white institution we have a particular responsibility to uplift minority voices and encourage them to take on leadership roles in the newsroom. By collaborating, this group has already helped expand the purview of our reporting, and I have personally benefited from the community it fosters within The Daily Tar Heel.
My co-Editor-in-Chief Emily Siegmund put it best when she said, “I never could have anticipated being in this position — just last year I was a staff writer. I am incredibly proud of the strides Marco and I have made in our respective managing editor positions in the first half of this year, and I know we will continue to uphold the best interests of the paper and our community as we take on the additional roles of co-editors.”
Emily and I both have a particular interest in pursuing solutions journalism through The Daily Tar Heel. We recognize that this paper is an outlet that can be utilized as more than just a news source — it is also a resource for those we serve. We aim to move our ideas beyond the fine print and into tools that can help our community in their everyday lives.
Though our former leader Maddy Arrowood will be greatly missed, Emily and I are confident we will continue to drive the DTH toward new and innovative ideas. We welcome feedback from the community and strongly encourage you, our readers, to tell us how we can better serve you as a source of information at the University and in the surrounding communities.
