Alli Pardue will serve as the 2025-26 editor-in-chief of The DTH

Alli Pardue is a self-proclaimed “good vibes police.” 

She will continue to bring her positivity to the newsroom, as on Saturday afternoon, the Editor Selection Committee chose Pardue to be the 2025-26 editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel. 

At the head of Pardue’s platform is continuing to mitigate burnout in the newsroom and ensure that leadership positions at The DTH are sustainable. Pardue was away in Seville, Spain during the 2024 fall semester, contributing to her plans to expand the coverage of The DTH to reach multilingual communities. She also plans to focus on improving and streamlining the newsroom's digital presence to reach an increasing online audience.  

Pardue came back for the spring semester hoping to reintegrate herself back into the newsroom in any way she could. She is currently a staffer on the Audience Engagement Desk, and she makes sure to show up in the office and bring her positivity and support. 

“I help them out on audience engagement desk, and I just hang out in the office, trying to get myself back in the loop after being gone for a semester,” Pardue said. 

Pardue is currently a UNC junior majoring in journalism with a minor in Spanish for business. She began working at The DTH on the Audience Engagement Desk her first year and moved up in the spring to become the Assistant Audience Engagement Editor. She has also worked on The DTH summer staff as the Audience Engagement Editor and was the Audience Engagement Editor for the 2023-2024 school year. 

Viyathma Hapuarachchi is the current Audience Engagement Editor and worked closely with Pardue. Hapurachchi says that Pardue has worked in many aspects of the newsroom and that she came back as a staff member because she missed being a part of The DTH. 

She spoke further on Pardue’s character and the love she has for The DTH. 

“She’s just somebody who’s always willing to teach and she wants to build relationships with people, all the time,” Hapurachchi said. 

Member of the Selection Committee and former EIC Anna Pogarcic said that Pardue’s ability to clearly articulate her vision for the newsroom was powerful, particularly seeing that conviction as a former editor. 

Pogarcic said that Pardue presented specific actionable steps she wanted to take to achieve her goals as well as connecting her experience both at The DTH and her hometown newspaper. 

With the changes that UNC and higher education will be experiencing in the next year, Pogracic said that The DTH will need a strong leader to navigate that and she feels confident that Pardue will be able to do just that. 

Natalie Bradin current Audio-Visual Editor said that she was impressed with the tangible improvements that Pardue would bring to the newsroom. 

“I was impressed whenever anybody on the committee asked her a question, she had a great answer to everything and if she couldn’t provide a complete answer, she knew who she was going to lean on in the newsroom,” Bradin said. 

Bradin is personally excited for Pardue’s leadership and what she will bring to the table for multimedia coverage, as an increasing amount of audiences are online, making the newsroom more inclusive. 

Ava Sharon, another member of the selection committee reinforced Pardue’s ability to recognize her strengths and weaknesses, noting that she appreciated hearing Pardue admit that she doesn’t know everything and will rely on the people at The DTH who are experts at what they do. 

Pardue is taking today to revel in this achievement but will be planting both feet on the ground in the office tomorrow.

“I’m just really, really excited to serve the community and to serve this newsroom that I love so much,” Pardue said.

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