After an application and selection period, student leaders within NC State’s Student Media were appointed for the upcoming 2018-2019 year. Technician talked to the future leaders of the newspapers of Nubian Message and Technician about what made them want to apply for their positions and what their goals for their position are.
Jonathan Carter, third-year studying political science, Editor-in-Chief for Technician
Carter has been working for Technician since 2016 and quickly moved to leadership positions in his time with the organization. Carter said that what attracted him to the organization was not only the passion of the staff members, but their commitment to Technician. Carter discussed his plans for the next volume of Technician saying that working with other student media outlets to provide a platform for student voices to be heard is one of his main goals.
What has been your past experience in Student Media?
I love telling this story. I had no intentions of doing journalism or anything of the like when I came to NC State. I had no involvement with Technician until January of my freshmen year. My roommate saw a flyer for a Technician interest meeting, and he asked me if I wanted to go this interest meeting. I said that I don’t care anything about writing for the newspaper, and that I’m not a journalist. So I came to an interest meeting. The editors at the time talked about the different sections and what they did. Immediately after, they had a Q&A similar to the open houses and interest meetings we do now. I talked to the editor-in-chief and the managing editor at the time. I saw two people that had, not just a passion, but a real commitment to this organization. I didn’t know what that was or how they got it, but I wanted it too. Originally I was interested in opinion, but the minute I said news, the news editor at the time flagged me down and told me to come to a news meeting. So, I went to a news meeting the following Sunday and was assigned a story covering the engineering career fair. I was assigned that story, and I have been here ever since.
What made you want to apply for your leadership role within Student Media?
At the end of my freshman year, I applied for and was hired as the assistant news editor, where I served until December of 2016. Then, I was hired as news editor where I served until April of 2017. In April of 2017, I ran for editor-in-chief. I was selected and have been serving as editor-in-chief since then.
I was always greatly inspired by first Kaitlin Montgomery, the editor-in-chief from 2015-2016, and then Rachael Smith, my editor-in-chief when I was assistant news and news editor. In those two people, I saw a strong commitment to this organization and unwavering dedication … to the community of NC State and providing them the content that they needed and deserved. This isn’t a club. This isn’t something that we do just for fun. This is a real job and a real service. We are not a professional newspaper, but we are a real newspaper. We are student journalists. In working with them very closely and seeing what they did, I decided I had that commitment. I ran for editor-in-chief because I thought I had those traits that made a good editor-in-chief in being dedicated to the staff, dedicated to the newspaper and being dedicated to the service of the NC State community through journalism. I also thought that I had the expertise [from] working in news for a year and working with a lot of the other departments. I really wanted to see how we could bring those all together to make the best newspaper possible. The two biggest things in my platform [are] better representation of traditionally underrepresented groups and communities on NC State’s campus and making our social media platforms as good as they can possibly be. Both of those things are at the top of my priority list for accomplishing in this next volume.
What do you wish to accomplish in your time in your position?
Covering those communities, making sure that this student newspaper is the student newspaper that serves every person, every student of the NC State community. That doesn’t mean covering only the big events that get a lot of attention; that means actually digging deep and finding stories of communities that are not represented on our pages that are not represented by any other community. That’s what we need to strive to do because the student newspaper that isn’t a voice for every student is not a student newspaper worth anything. That can be accomplished by working with those communities, talking with those communities, being in constant discussion and talking with our sibling publication in Nubian Message even more than we did last year. Also, social media. [We are] working on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to really push our brand out there, especially since we are going down to once a week in print now. That is very, very integral to our success as a new organization.
Keilah Davis, third-year studying physics, future Editor-in-Chief for Nubian Message
Davis, who started working for Nubian Message in 2016, talked about the impact the organization had on her, in terms of how much the publication means to the African American community at NC State, was what made her want to join. Davis said that in the next volume of Nubian Message, she hopes to improve the publication’s social media presence to connect with NC State students on those platforms.
What has been your past experience in Student Media?
I started as a correspondent for the Nubian Message in February of 2016, the second semester of my freshmen year. Then I became a staff writer, and this academic year, I have been managing editor, and next year, I will be editor-in-chief. So, all of my experience has been with Nubian Message.
What made you want to apply for your leadership role within Student Media?
This year as managing editor, it was a super eye-opening experience for me. I am a physics major, so I haven’t had that many experiences in class with communication and news writing and editing. I have gained a lot of those experiences through being a staff writer and through being managing editor. Also, I was lucky enough to be managing editor during our 25th year of existence. Celebrating our 25th anniversary with our huge 25th issue and the small, little party we had in the African American Cultural Center and being able to learn so much about our history, how we were founded … that was just a wonderful, eye-opening experience for me. It helps me realize how much the Nubian [Message] means to me on an individual level, but also how much it really means to NC State and the black community here. When it came time to apply for editor-in-chief, I knew I want to be part of pushing this publication even further and guiding us in, perhaps, a new direction, but keeping up with this momentum that we have been building in recent years and growing our readership and coverage … I wanted to be a part of that and be able to leave a legacy behind for future generations of Nubian Message to look back on and be proud of.
What do you wish to accomplish in your time in your position?
There are some long-term news projects that I want to work on. We do a lot of news stories about events happening around campus. We don’t do as much with long-term reporting and long-form features or even long series of news stories. There’s a few of those that I want to hit next year regarding various areas of administration. I also want to help position the Nubian Message to be in a much better place to transition into having a very strong web and social media presence. We definitely aren’t in a place yet to be a web-first publication, but I could see us being there in a few years. So I want to get us in a strong, solid place with the paper, with our website and with a social media presence, so when we do make that transition, we have the building blocks we need to make that transition as smooth as possible.
Keilah Davis is the upcoming Editor-in-Chief for Nubian Message
