The Daily has elected Jazz Wolfe and Jillian Taylor to serve as its summer and fall-spring editors-in-chief, respectively.
Wolfe is a journalism and history of science junior and current culture editor. They have worked with The Daily since fall 2020 and previously served as a culture reporter and assistant culture editor.
As summer editor-in-chief, Wolfe said although students will be absent from campus, they hope to create a strong core for The Daily’s newsroom and prepare reporters to continue serving the broader OU community when classes return to session.
“My main goal for the summer is to just build up as strong of a newsroom, as strong of a foundation as we can,” Wolfe said. “That way, when fall does come, we are fully prepared and we will be ready to take on whatever we have to.”
Wolfe said they hope they will be able to reconnect with the OU and Norman communities as staple events of the season, such as Norman Pride, return to in-person formats.
“Since so far it seems the pandemic is tentatively slowing down and relaxing a bit … it’ll be kind of nice to cover the world opening back up during a nice, bright, sunny summer,” Wolfe said. “I’m just excited to serve the community and the newsroom the best that I can and to foster an environment of diversity, trust and — ideally — hope for the future and what we can all do.”
Taylor, a journalism junior who has worked with The Daily since fall 2019, currently serves as news managing editor. She has also served as a culture reporter, news reporter, news editor, assistant news managing editor and summer editor-in-chief in 2021.
Also hopeful that the COVID-19 pandemic will taper off in the coming months, Taylor aims to focus on intentional connection with the OU community to improve The Daily’s coverage.
“I think it’ll be interesting as we exit this place in the pandemic where things were a lot stricter, this, honestly, two years of monotony,” Taylor said. “We will have this opportunity to come back in, increase our coverage opportunities and be in places that we haven’t been able to. … I am excited to go to meetings more in person and meet with the people we’re writing about more often.”
Staying in touch with the student body will be a high priority, Taylor said.
“I would definitely say that my focus is going to be student-centric, whether that be in what we write, what we publish or how we interact with people,” Taylor said. “I will be making sure that I have my finger on the pulse of the community to understand what they need from me, what they need from us and how we can best serve them, but also best serve the people that are making that content.”
