When I became the editor of The Daily Reveille, I certainly never expected to sleep in the newsroom during a hurricane, cover a bomb threat or sue the University, but all of these things and the day-to-day events in between have culminated into an amazing year for the paper.
The Society of Professional Journalists recently named The Daily Reveille the best daily college newspaper in America and the work we’ve done this past year demonstrates why. Shortly into the fall semester, we moved to a new website platform that gave us to capability to push our “digital first” mindset, while news and sports coverage were outstanding across each platform.
We’ve had hard-hitting news coverage of everything from a student being accused of attempted murder to a truck rolling over a student in the Quad; entertainment features encompassing Jazz Fest, Buku, Voodoo and many more festivals; along with sports coverage of the never-ending Tyrann Mathieu saga, Johnny Jones’ first year coaching men’s basketball and the baseball team’s impressive season thus far. And then there’s all of our interactive online features like videos, blogs and our revamped interactive salary database where our readers have been able to see how much money their professors earn.
Our opinion section this semester brought a whole spectrum of beliefs as we tried to have columnists who could represent a variety of viewpoints on campus. Our editorial board has taken many strong stances that we believe are important for the LSU community to read. Reveille Radio has also delivered news to the LSU community on KLSU as we strive for more convergence.
Once again, our photos and design have won a multitude of awards. We’re grateful to have such beautiful visual components that make The Reveille enticing for readers to view.
Whether it was a day full of breaking news or a day when we were reaching to put together a front page story, I can confidently say I’ve learned something new each day that I’ve held my position as editor in chief. I’ve learned how to manage a staff of about 100 people, I’ve had my eyes opened to the legal system and I’ve seen the importance of the work that The Daily Reveille does.
As The Reveille strives to exert a leadership role on campus, I always seem to gravitate toward a mantra we repeated again and again in my Lafayette High School leadership classes. Though I hate platitudes, “to lead is to serve” is a pretty great one.
My term as editor in chief has come to a close, and while I’m sad to be leaving such an amazing position, I know that The Daily Reveille will continue to serve LSU by upholding the highest standards of quality journalism and by acting as watchdogs in the LSU community. It’s not the newspaper’s job to make everyone happy to or make everyone look good — our job is to present the facts and inform our readers and I’m proud to say that’s what we’ve done this past year. I hope we’ve produced an enjoyable product because we certainly had a blast making it.
Be sure to stay up to date with The Reveille over the summer, when our print edition will come out twice a week and lsureveille.com and our app will stay updated. As always, send us your input. We want to hear from the community that we serve.
Andrea Gallo is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Lafayette, La.
