Looking back at the emails sent by Daily Trojan editors from the early 2000s, I’m struck by how much has changed. Gone are the DT bloggers and the reliance on the office landline for news tips, replaced by breaking news posts and Slack messages. Gone too is the five-day printing schedule lost to budget cuts in winter 2024.

At the same time, I’m amazed by what has stayed the same across the decades. Then as now, DT reporters are dedicated to reporting the news our fellow Trojans need to go about their campus and their community. Reporters, then as now, sacrifice their days and endure late nights to get the paper out. Then as now, they conduct interviews and write between classes and amid midterms. 

We at the DT continue to rigorously cover campus budget cuts, changes to higher education across the nation, the reshaping of college athletics, local arts and so, so much more.

While the print edition has and continues to be the backbone of our work — essential to reaching the wide community of current Trojans, alums and the wider Los Angeles area — reaching everyone requires readjustment in every decade. The Daily Trojan has been in operation for 113 years, and today’s paper is vastly different from the first issue of The Daily Southern Californian. Change is at the core of the past and of the future of this paper. 

As the Spring 2026 DT editor-in-chief, and a witness to the impact of our social media presence throughout the years, a major focus will be continuing to expand the breadth of our content across social media and online platforms. While blogs may have been the way to reach students in 2015, in 2026, meeting students where they’re at means continuing to expand our Instagram offerings. 

This semester we’re bringing back posting our top daily stories on Instagram — a strategy we also used during the coronavirus pandemic to connect with students. The front page of our newspaper is split between the print edition in the many newsstands on campus, dailytrojan.com and our social media accounts. We hope to reflect that reality by quickly getting our stories to readers every day via Instagram.

At the same time, this semester will see increased content across all our Instagram accounts, including @dailytrojanphoto, @dailytrojansports and @dailytrojanmagazine. This is done to provide content that readers not only find helpful, but are excited to read. We recognize that our content provides value to our readers in many different ways: as visuals, as a means of connecting with other USC sports fans, as explorations of the culture of our campus and city, and not just as breaking news.

Even in the six semesters I have been at the DT, I have seen huge growth in our online platforms. I’m grateful for all the work the continued generations of editors have poured into getting our social media where it is today, and I’m excited to continue to put out content that connects Trojans and students with each other, with the world they live in and with the resources that help them. 

To that end, over the past semester, our News team began producing explainer journalism to connect students to the resources they have on campus. Our explainers help bring into focus the impact of stories, in a way our traditional articles can’t. Last semester, we published breakdowns of President Donald Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, opt-out student fees and new meal plans. Ultimately, our goals are to give students the tools they need to navigate their life on campus. 

Without a doubt, expect to continue to see explanatory journalism from our News section and spreading across our social media. However, as we head into the semester, we also want to know what information you want to know, and what stories would help you navigate campus. 

Supplementing our daily headline newsletter — a piece of the DT that has continued from the early 2000s — Trojans can also expect a new sports-focused newsletter launching later this spring alongside our sports extras covering USC basketball. Arts & Entertainment and Opinion newsletters will follow. 

When I look at the DT, I see an over-100-year history of students continually doing their best to help their fellow students and integrating those tools beyond their time with the paper. The DT connects current students, alums and the whole Trojan Family. That may be through blogs in one decade, newsletters in another and social media in a third. It is found in our physical copies, online and wherever you may be reading this letter.

As staff and editors at the Daily Trojan, we are most often here for just four years, eight semesters. But getting to look back at the work of all the editors who came before me, I see just how far we have come. Across the years, we’ve worked hard to put out the important, well-reported stories that move the University and its students forward. And always, we adjust and readjust.