The Daily Tar Heel is beginning the editor selection process for the 2020-21 academic year. Candidate Brandon Standley discusses his platform of diversifying the DTH, focusing on localized content and more. For candidate Anna Pogarcic's platform, look here.
The Daily Tar Heel has been a robust organization for the past 126 years, and as we continue on into our 127th year, we continue to develop, grow and change into a new media outlet. If chosen as the editor for the DTH, I plan to continue helping the paper as it changes into this new media organization, in whatever capacity that exists.
However, no change can come without a plan. If instituted as editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel, I plan to implement modifications in multiple areas that will hopefully benefit the paper in the long run. Areas include back-end operations like production revamping and changing the way that our newsroom is structured, but I also plan to focus on changing areas surrounding how we plan to cover stories and how we present our coverage to the public.
A large focus for my editor-in-chief candidacy is ensuring that we are accurately and completely covering topics that are relevant to our area. This is one space in which the DTH continually falls short, in that we are a mostly homogeneous organization, that often-times leaves out the voices that can matter the most to completing our coverage. We need to be focused on what we aren’t seeing — what is in our self-induced blind-spot.
I was told once in an introductory journalism course that often-times, what is most interesting is what is behind us. In our coverage, we should not only be focused on what’s in front of us — which is typically familiar sources, or areas that we’re comfortable in — and, instead, we should focus on what is behind and around us, which may be the area of discomfort, or the people that we often-times overlook. Of course, this isn’t as easy as turning around, but it is as easy as putting forth the effort into intentional coverage and sourcing.
Not only should our paper be focused on getting diverse coverage that tells the stories of underrepresented groups and highlights the people who often don’t get to speak, or cannot speak as loudly as others — but we should also be focused on framing these stories in a way that is friendly to the reader. Part of my candidacy for editor-in-chief is focused on enhancing the design of all products across the board for The Daily Tar Heel. We understand that our readers are seeking more than just a block of text that lays out the facts in a traditional inverted-pyramid style.
Therefore, I want to ensure that our paper and online content is reader friendly as often as possible. Whether that comes in the form of lists, interactive graphics, elements that outline important data or facts in a story, or in more condensed story formats — design is a top priority of mine. This, as mentioned, spreads to the online aspect of news coverage. I want to help our content curators, so that they have new tools that allow them to turn ordinary text information into alternative formats with ease, for the benefit of the reader.
Finally, in conjunction with framing stories in a reader friendly manner, I am hopeful to utilize new and existing platforms to tell our stories to audiences. One specific institutional change that I hope to implement is to revive and revamp Multimedia desk into the DTH newsroom. As it stands today, all of our multimedia content is created by staffers on a variety of desks, and there is no central hub for distributing, creating or assisting with these things. I believe that video and audio production can be a new way to long-form- and serial-type stories in a way that is more digestible by readers and extends beyond the desktop or the print paper.
In summary, though I cannot express it fully in 800 words, I am committed to providing reader-focused content that is accurate and provides the information that the residents of Orange County and of the University need to know about. With that, comes the idea that our coverage will be focused on enhancing diversity and inclusion in the institutions that surround us, and that tell the stories that need to be told. Additionally, I want The Daily Tar Heel to be seen as a resource for our communities, and for people to see our organization as a place that is open to all, and an outlet that will listen, investigate, report and help keep accountability for all across the board.
