To get a window into the thoughts of The Daily Tar Heel’s most public face, Editor-in-Chief Andy Thomason, check out The Editor’s Blog at www.dailytarheel.com.
The Daily Tar Heel is a staple on campus, read by every student, professor and passerby. But what really goes on beyond the masthead? Editor-in-Chief Andy Thomason wants you to know.
“One of my goals is to make this organization more transparent because people read the DTH every day but not many people think of it as something besides a paper in a box or a building on Rosemary Street,” Andy said.
Andy is a senior at UNC and the newest DTH editor in a long lineage of successful professional journalists, and as such he has a clear vision for what he would like for the newspaper this year.
“When I got into this I wanted to focus on making sure we are fulfilling our public service role,” he said. “We long felt that we have covered the news, the big stories better than anybody else out there in the country. We feel that when we get the opportunity to sink our teeth into a story that comes up, our history has been that we’ve done a great job with it.”
But Andy felt that the DTH has not done enough investigative journalism in the past and as a result created a new position on the paper, Director of Enterprise, who can do investigative research and seek out stories.
“People don’t realize that we are a major actor in this community,” Andy said. “This is a community that is very important to those who live in it, and the things that go on are very important to them. I take that extremely seriously.”
Andy views the DTH as “a public instrument that should be accessible to everyone,” and a part of that is letting the readers know what goes on behind the scenes. The Editor’s Blog is his way of increasing communication with readers and holding the staff accountable for misquotes, misinformation and other issues that the newspaper has been criticized for in the past.
“What I’m trying to do with this is give people a window into the organization and what goes on here,” Andy said. “We try to do the best job that we can and when we make a huge error you can count on seeing that in The Editor’s Blog.”
Recent posts on the blog include why the DTH went to the Democratic National Convention and not the Republican National Convention, and how they covered Chancellor Holden Thorp’s resignation.
“We just want to illuminate how we do our job because no one knows other than the people in here,” he said.
Outside the DTH Andy enjoys watching the AMC show Mad Men, but says that most of the time his mind is on the newsroom.
“Even when I’m not here, I’m here, which is bad in some ways but good in others,” said Andy, referring to the DTH offices. “After being here for three plus years I find myself writing headlines in class or thinking about how an article could be written or how to incorporate this into this or a photo for that story Friday. It’s completely involuntary because I’m not a journalism major but I love it.”
Andy is a history major with an English minor. He decided to pursue history because of the interesting lecture classes and flexible structure.
“I’ve taken so many good lecture classes that are really enlightening and inspiring,” Andy said.
He also notes that journalism and history are closely related.
“The newspaper is the rough draft of any point in history,” he said. “People who do research at Wilson Library look at The Tar Heel, as it was called ’20s and ’30s and before that, so in that sense I really like the connection there.”
When asked what he would like to do in the future, Andy is much more reluctant to answer.
“I have this thing where I don’t really think about it,” he said. “I do that because when I see people come back here, former editors and such, they say this is the best time or job they’ve had and it’s definitely the best job I’ve had and maybe will ever have. It’s never made sense for me to think about what will come after.”
However, Andy has not completely ignored the subject of his future.
“When I think about something I’d like to do, it would be something like this,” he said. “Whether it’s in journalism or something else, something where my work really matters.”