When I joined the Daily Trojan in my first semester at USC, a masthead position, let alone editor in chief, was the furthest thing from my mind. Now, I know that when I reminisce about my time in college in the years to come, the Daily Trojan, its people and its very late nights will always be at the forefront of those memories.

As my friends can attest, there always comes a midpoint in the semester when I declare, “I am so done with the paper; this is my last semester.” But as I returned to the newsroom semester after semester, those threats felt emptier and emptier.  

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Of course, I always come back. I care — probably more than I should — about DT’s work and my fellow students who give their time, words and skills to creating our small daily paper. I feel I echo the sentiments of all returning staffers in saying that.

I also believe the mid-semester exasperation and burnout is a shared masthead experience; it is almost an expectation. This must be healed.

With 10,000 papers printed daily, about tens of thousands of more monthly web visitors and over 90,000 followers across our social media accounts, we have a serious responsibility with our platform to be fair, accurate and sensitive. My platform as an editor in chief candidate spoke heavily about prioritizing masthead and staff well-being while fostering a more thoughtful and inclusive workplace. I am honored that my peers put their trust in me by voting me into this position, and I promise to always support them and act in their best interests.  

For me, my time as a Daily Trojan editor has often felt like falling upward. Information and standards are passed on through people rather than in writing between semesters, which has undeniably made the job harder. The managing team, which consists of six editors in the highest paper positions, often had contradictory approaches to situations, from small page edits to workplace violations. 

This is not any one person’s fault but rather a group shortcoming. Still, it creates unnecessary stress on all members of the paper.

There must be a written record of everything. My managing team and I plan to revamp our code of ethics, strengthening and solidifying it to create easy and recognizable standards for our staff to adhere to. 

We have already begun this process, adding an official termination process and standards, updating our internal social media policy and creating an anonymous writer policy. Now, we are working on updating our diversity, equity and inclusion standards.

The Daily Trojan should be a welcoming space for all people, and we’ve worked to make strides, such as having our first active DEI committee last semester. There are still major improvements needed, however. Once again, this involved creating written records.

As a workplace, we need written report forms. While I am creating a form that reaches out directly to me, and can be passed along to future editors in chief, we need a DEI-specific form. Former DEI Director Antonio Wu and current DEI Director Peyton Dacy have worked diligently on the creation of these forms: one incident report form and one anonymous reporting form that will be handled by all future DEI directors. 

Now, it’s a matter of working those into our code of ethics to ensure their work is passed on to future semesters. One day, an entirely new team of editors will sit on the masthead, long after the 30 of us have graduated. My hope is that they will know all I wish I could have. 

Realistically, I won’t have the opportunity to entirely improve the Daily Trojan culture in my short seven-month tenure. While I can work to set strong standards and practices into place, the true test of the Fall 2024 managing team’s success will lie with the Daily Trojan’s future mastheads. I, along with the managing team, hope to be a catalyst and start the process for future semesters to achieve full transparency within the organization and be fully equipped with the knowledge and standards to streamline all aspects of the paper. 

With that being said, I am proud to present the first Daily Trojan issue of the Fall 2024 semester. I want to thank every editor, copyeditor, director, writer, photographer and artist who contributed to creating this hefty 36-page paper. I am excited and beyond optimistic for the semester to come and to continue our mission of keeping the Trojan community accurately and independently informed.