A new year, a new editor
It’s finally here. The Daily Mississippian enters its hundredth year of publication, and I begin my tenure as editor-in-chief.
From the time that I was named editor- well, from the time I thought about and consequently applied to be editor-in-
chief - of The Daily Mississippian, I’ve wondered how the first day would go.
I had watched last year’s editor Alex McDaniel go through her year and a string of nasty e-mails and phone calls. I had watched her handle calls from people loud enough to hear from my desk, far away from her handset— and how she never raised her voice.
I also got to read the good e-mails— the professor from the English department not finding any errors in it, the mother appreciating the story on her daughter.
Through watching all of these interactions, I realized how important it was to our readers that they let us know exactly how they felt.
I hope you’ll continue. As a staff of students, and an entirely new one at that, we are learning how to provide you the absolute best paper we can. If it means that you have to call and yell at us, so be it. It’s what we thrive on. It’s how we know our job matters.
But more importantly, this paper is for you. It isn’t put out so that we know the news, or so that we can put our own stories on the refrigerator. It’s for the student body of the University of Mississippi to read during their classes, and talk about over bagels at Einstein.
It’s for the senior who just picks it up for the Sudoku, and for the freshman to try to catch up to the rest of his peers. It’s for the professors to lament to the barista in the Union about how the opinion columnist doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
It’s for the mother, the alumnus, the high school student that picks it up as they happen to pass by a stand.
Without all of those people, and without you, we’d have no reason to have this paper.
We wouldn’t have jobs, and The Daily Mississippian certainly wouldn’t have made it this far.
Please, please, keep telling us what you want. It’s been the paper for you to read for 100 years, and so long as you’re still reading, it will continue for another hundred. My e-mail address is published online, but it’s dmeditor@gmail.
com. If you feel so inclined, let us know how we’re doing. Send us the things you want to read about: we’re listening.
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