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As she prepares to take over, the Daily Lobo’s next editor said building a more transparent newspaper with a stronger social and online media presence are among her priorities for her term.
Elizabeth Cleary will be the newspaper’s next editor-in-chief.
The UNM Student Publications Board selected Elizabeth Cleary to be the next Daily Lobo editor-in-chief on April 13. Her term officially starts on Monday. Cleary, who is the paper’s current managing editor, said she learned most of her journalism skills and a lot about herself from working at the Daily Lobo.
“I’ve been at this newspaper for a few years now and I’ve really fallen in love with it,” she said. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun next year and we’re going to churn out a really great paper that serves the public.”
Editor-in-chief Chris Quintana said Cleary already has upper management experience at the Daily Lobo, and that her editorship is logical progression.
“She spent the last year under me, which shows she has a lot of patience,” he said. “We’ve made a number of mistakes but she’s coming in with knowledge of those mistakes so she can avoid them in the future.”
Quintana said Cleary’s experience as a reporter is a great asset to the Lobo. He said she ensures that all stories are well-developed before they are published.
“She’s a great reporter and she has a great sense of what makes a story important and why it matters,” he said. “In the past year I’ve learned that is indispensable.”
Cleary said she will focus on social media and make the Daily Lobo website more user-friendly. She said that next year for the first time the Daily Lobo will have a social media editor, who will be in charge of updating and promoting the Facebook and Twitter pages and keeping the Daily Lobo up to date on social media trends.
“The way you break a story now is not through a big headline, it’s by posting it on Twitter,” she said. “Although we are a student newspaper that serves a smaller community, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be keeping up with that because it will allow us to better serve our readers.”
Cleary said she will take steps to make editorial processes more transparent to build trust between the Daily Lobo and the UNM community. She said the Lobo should address issues that upset Lobo readers and be honest about the paper’s thought, writing and editing processes.
Cleary said multimedia should play a larger role in the Daily Lobo. She said video components and photo essays promote traffic on the Daily Lobo website and create a more dynamic experience for readers.
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“I want input from as many different perspectives as possible,” she said. “Greater perspective will allow me to make more informed, sensitive and ethical editorial decisions.”
Cleary has worked at the Lobo since March 2009 and while she has taught a lot to other staff members, she said she still has a lot to learn. She has worked as a reporter, news editor, copy editor, copy chief and managing editor, and her various positions will help with her work as editor-in-chief.
“It’s my job to coach reporters on how to be better writers and reporters,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn from the experience, we’re are all students and we are constantly learning from each other.”
