The Post Publishing Board on Thursday selected Emma Ockerman as the editor-in-chief of The Post for the 2015-16 academic year.
The Post Publishing Board selected Emma Ockerman on Thursday as the editor-in-chief of The Post for the 2015-16 academic year.
Ockerman, a sophomore studying journalism and current Post local news editor, will be the first woman to lead The Post since Ashley Lutz during the 2009-10 academic year.
“There is a majority of females on campus and it’s representative of a lot of the stories we’ve done, which need a female voice to back them,” Ockerman said. “I’m very proud to be the first female editor-in-chief in five years.”
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The role of the Post Publishing Board is to assist the publication's top editors, as well as pick the editor-in-chief each year. The board does not control editorial content of the paper or its website.
“Emma is incredibly mature and advanced for her year in school,” said Aimee Edmondson, the chairwoman of the Post Publishing Board and an associate professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. “She brings to the position three personal characteristics…relentless, charismatic and digitally minded.”
The Post is a student-run, editorially independent publication that has covered Ohio University and Athens for more than 100 years.
The current editor is Jim Ryan, a senior studying journalism and political science.
Edmondson, who has been at the university since 2008, said she was excited to have a woman selected to be editor for just the second time in her tenure. She was unsure the last time a sophomore was selected to be editor.
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“It means a lot,” she said. “Roughly three-quarters of the students within the (E.W. Scripps School of Journalism) are female. So it would make sense then that it is past time for it to be a woman, since we have so many more women in the j-school.”
She added, although there is a female majority among students within the college, women aren’t equally represented in leadership positions.
“If you look at the faculty of the j-school, we are about a third female, so you don’t see women in leadership roles in the (Scripps College of Communication) as a whole,” she said, noting the five directors in the college are men.
“This is a nice break from tradition,” she said.
Ryan said he is sure Ockerman will do an excellent job as his successor.
“Emma is a proven communicator, a good steward of The Post and someone who has never hesitated to take on a challenge,” he said. “I’m confident the challenge of being editor-in-chief next year will be one she will tackle with a lot of poise.”
He added all three candidates for editor, which included Will Drabold, a junior in the Honors Tutorial College studying journalism, and Daniel Joseph, a freshman studying journalism, were qualified for the position and demonstrated dedication to the publication. He fully expects Drabold and Joseph to be around next fall contributing under Ockerman’s leadership.
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“I think Emma has always been one who has been able to connect with members of staff, in ways that perhaps I’m not able to,” he said. “I think she’ll be a different dynamic for next year’s Post.”
Ockerman, a native of Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, has previously worked at The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit Metro Times, in addition to The Post. She will be working as an intern at The Columbus Dispatch this summer.
“I’m excited for next year and I feel like this could bring some really great change to The Post while working off of what we have, which is a really excellent publication, and make it even better,” she said.
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