Both locally and nationally, the news cycle has been especially busy for Posties lately.
Although The Post is a publication that focuses on the Ohio University and Athens communities, we are always looking for ways to localize national and international news. Recently, our news and photo staffs have been looking for ways to tell stories about the Russia-Ukraine conflict through the eyes of OU students and the greater community.
On Monday, The Post covered the department of history, department of political science and the Contemporary History Institute’s panel discussion and Q&A on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. We had several photographers attend to capture the event, and the photo staff as a whole has carried their cameras around campus for the past week in order to represent students raising awareness and showing solidarity with Ukraine across Athens.
Additionally, we have run several columns related to the situation. The topics range from how this conflict reminds us of the unfortunate slashing of Russian studies at OU to how Russian and Ukrainian civilians will bear the fallout.
Our news staff is continuing to work on other stories related to Russia and Ukraine with more content set to come out this week.
Aside from localizing national and international stories, campus has had no shortage of news itself.
When news breaks on campus or we’re digging deep into an investigative story, it’s not uncommon to find Posties hunched over their laptops in the newsroom until 2 a.m. Reporting on campus events is a team effort, with reporters and editors both dedicating a lot of their time – and sacrificing precious hours of sleep – to best inform our campus community.
I’d like to give special thanks to Emma Skidmore and Ryan Maxin, our current news editors, and Molly Wilson, our assistant news editor. Collectively, these three are an absolute powerhouse. They are always asking our university and city officials important questions, they are great mentors for our young news staff and are bright reporters who make me excited about the future of The Post.
I’d also like to give shoutouts to Sophie Young, our fantastic news staff writer, and Payton Daugherty, a news reporter. Both Young and Daugherty have provided excellent coverage of campus news and politics lately. Young has worked tirelessly alongside Wilson and Maxin to provide context and coverage of OU’s Student Senate and the events that have taken place since the voided removal of Treasurer Simar Kalkat. Daugherty has proved herself to be a reliable reporter who excels at covering important meetings and events, such as the Russia-Ukraine panel and Athens City Council’s meeting on Monday. During that meeting, Council tabled an ordinance that would extend the city’s mask mandate, which means effective Monday, the mandate has ended. This comes a day before OU announced it was altering its own face covering mandate, which no longer requires masks in most Athens campus spaces.
As student journalists, we wear a lot of hats. Most of our days are spent in classrooms, and most evenings are spent in our newsroom attending meetings, filing stories and putting together the weekly tabloid. Despite only a single name appearing on the byline for a story, there are countless individuals who help each article get in front of our readers’ eyes. I’m especially grateful for the steadfast, dedicated reporting of our news staff when the news cycle seems to get even more hectic than usual, and I hope our continued reporting helps inform our campus of our world in Athens and beyond.
Abby Miller is a senior studying journalism and political science at Ohio University and the editor-in-chief of The Post. Have questions? Email Abby at am166317@ohio.edu or tweet her @abblawrence.
