Managing editor captures newsroom

Photo essay gives a glimpse into The Daily Evergreen nightly production from an insider’s point of view

Layout editor Ty Eklund sits under a wall full of old newspapers each night as he uses Adobe InDesign to lay out the front page. They’re meant to showcase great past layouts while offering layout editors inspiration for what they can do.

SYDNEY BROWN, Evergreen reporter
May 3, 2019

Fingertips clatter against keyboard and light chatter fills the air. Old newspapers — and some memes that have been around for over a decade — line the cream-colored, worn walls of the basement of Murrow Hall. Here, students of a wide range of majors, ambitions and positions produce a daily student newspaper, one of the last of its kind in the country. At the beginning of a night of production of The Daily Evergreen, editors, writers and photographers filter in and out, uploading their content and writing their stories.

By 7 p.m., the night slows down and the only sounds you can hear is the sound of editors laying out their pages. Between these quiet moments are moments of laughter, stress-induced outbursts and moments of friendship. This Thursday night, the last night of production for the school year, editors are all in a state of transition, all deciding what position they’ll serve next semester.

As managing editor, I feel I have a unique perspective of the newsroom. I spend the majority of my time in here, so I see everything: the readouts, photo shoots for special editions, editors listening intently to the police scanner or choosing a photo with the photo editor. In fact, most of us are always down here. It’s ironic that we are the eyes and ears of campus, yet we spend so much of our time away from the rest of campus. Frankly, sometimes it’s hard not to feel so disconnected.

We spend so much time writing others’ stories that I wanted to take photos from my perspective, photos that I believe represent the hard work that goes into a daily newspaper. We love what we do, but it’s not always easy. The newsroom has given me almost everything I could ask for in a job, but it has also been a lot of responsibility. I hope these photos are, first of all, good, and, most importantly, that they’re honest.

It’s been a pleasure being the Evergreen’s managing editor.