Board selects new student editors

Student, faculty and professional representatives chose the upcoming editors-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student and the Arbutus yearbook Friday.

After public interviews conducted by the IU Student Media Board, junior Natalie Avon was chosen as the fall 2009 editor-in-chief of the IDS, and senior Sara Amato was chosen as the summer 2009 editor-in-chief. Junior Katie Myrick will be the editor-in-chief of the Arbutus for the 2009-2010 school year.

Avon is currently a managing editor at the IDS, a position previously occupied by Amato, who is now the newspaper’s Web editor and design chief.

Myrick is also a design chief and has worked at the IDS as art director.

It’s a time of instability for print media, with IDS advertising sales down 9 percent and only a handful of college yearbooks left in the state.

All the upcoming editors said they would like to expand and improve their respective Web sites.

Avon, who ran unopposed, said she’d like to see more Web-only articles on www.idsnews.com.

Amato, who also ran unopposed, said she’d like to see news updated on the Web site.

Amato also said she would like to see the main article of the site change daily, even though the paper comes out twice a week during the summer.

Myrick ran against freshman Christine Ashack and junior Marc Epstein.

Online technology and software can go well with the traditions of the yearbook, Myrick said. She said she’d focus more time and energy on the Arbutus Web site.

“We have a lot of really great photos that aren’t used in the yearbook,” she said. “Why not put them on the Web site?”

Myrick said she’d also use technology such as Facebook and Twitter to increase the yearbook’s marketing. All three candidates for Arbutus editor-in-chief said many students do not know what the Arbutus is.

Both Avon and Amato said they would like to see longer investigative, in-depth reporting. They said they want to see that coupled with more “briefs” when a longer story is unnecessary.

They said they’d like to use less traditional ways of telling a story when appropriate, such as using graphs and graphics instead.

All three editors said they would like to go into journalism as a career.

Avon said it was her goal to become IDS editor-in-chief since she was in high school.

She said she would like to have a career in journalism, but with the industry as it is, she is thinking about law school.

“I’m still trying to pursue journalism very much,” Avon said.

Avon has great potential as editor-in-chief, said Director of Student Media Ron Johnson. Johnson advises the IDS and the Arbutus.

With her already wide journalism experience, including several positions on the IDS staff, Avon has the ability to plan and execute practically, he said.

“It’s an extremely difficult job,” Johnson said.