The Daily Tar Heel announced its new editor-in-chief on Monday. Laney Crawley is a sophomore majoring in media journalism and political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She will be the first Black woman to head the publication since it was founded in 1893.
“I’m really happy that I can be a part of that change,” Crawley said, according to the student newspaper. “I’m really happy to be the first, and I don’t want to be the last.”
Crawley started contributing to The Daily Tar Heel as a City & State desk staff writer during the 2022-23 school year. She then served as assistant opinion editor and as opinion editor.
She will take up her new position in August and will be interviewing and selecting editors for the next school year this month.
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“I’m really excited that I have the opportunity to do some of the things I talked about on my platform and actually implement those changes,” Crawley said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
She wants to prioritize mental health in the newsroom and create a sustainable work environment.
“I also really want to make sure that we’re putting mental health before our excessive coverage demands,” she said. “We don’t need to be putting out stories every minute of the day. It is seriously impacting people’s ability to work.”
Crawley also wants to highlight the voices of students left out of the newspaper’s past coverage, including those of the Black Student Movement and Students for Justice in Palestine.
She also plans to create a Special Projects desk focusing on investigative reporting and in-depth coverage.
The Daily Tar Heel is funded through advertising revenue and stopped taking student fees in 1993.
