After a nine-month vacancy following the departure of its previous director, the Office of Student Media has selected a replacement.

Richard Miller, former senior marketing communications coordinator for the WSU Global campus, took over on Monday. He will manage operations for The Daily Evergreen and the Chinook Yearbook.

Miller said one of his goals as director is to better engage students and The Daily Evergreen with each other.

“I would like to empower students with a sense of curiosity and skepticism,” he said, “and the ability to ask hard questions as they go out into the world.”

He feels these are necessary skills which allow people to function as informed members of society, and that college is the perfect time to acquire them.

“This is important stuff,” he said. “It’s essential to our democracy.”

As the media struggle to adjust to the internet age, Miller said student media, with its more stable funding and passionate young journalists, is the perfect place for experimentation.

“Student media is like an incubator for ideas,” he said.

Miller worked as a newspaper editor at The Spokesman-Review for about 20 years, and briefly as a news editor at the Kalispell Daily Inter Lake in Montana.

He has published two books in the past five years, one of which is a satire of the vampire genre, set in Spokane, which does not use the word “vampire” even once.

The Daily Evergreen staff retains complete control over all editorial decisions. University officials cannot review or impose restrictions on content.

Reporting by Cody Cottier