I’ve often joked over the last few years that working at the News is my main personality trait. That’s only becoming more true this semester.

This place is crazy. Since I wandered in my freshman year and was immediately given a story with no training or any question about my experience, I’ve been obsessed with the newsroom.

(I promise that’s not normal. Some miscommunication happened, but we’re now sure to train new writers as needed.)

Back then, I had no intention of pursuing journalism after graduation. Being here, experiencing real local journalism in an educational environment, has completely changed my mind.

Now, I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life doing anything else.

All my big life events for the last few years seem to have happened in this newsroom; exactly one year ago, the newspaper was my venue to come out to a lot of people in my life as transgender, and I filled out papers to change my name, start hormone therapy and more while sitting at my desk.

That’s something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid and my fellow staff members supported me and celebrated with me every step of the way.

Working as a journalist has also trained me to be more confident, more outgoing, more organized and more involved in my community.

I hope to give back to this publication as much as it has given me over the years.

On a personal level, this effort started last spring as I pushed to develop more podcasts and a newsletter, getting our work to people in new and different ways.

This year, I hope to continue building on those projects, as well as putting in the work to get more eyes on the content we produce.

If you don’t already follow us on your social media of choice, we’re probably there!

Our photo staff is killing it over on Instagram and the sports staff has big plans to provide live game updates on Twitter. The news staff usually sees success on Facebook, but we’re brainstorming spreading stories to other platforms too.

The staff has even convinced me to start a TikTok…. I guess we must adapt to the times, right?

I hope that video both on that platform and perhaps longer-form content on YouTube will make some of our content more accessible to a wider audience and allow us to delve into types of content we wouldn’t otherwise have created.

We have plans to provide a sports podcast, a news podcast and a movie podcast and more with new voices and more guests.

Don’t worry- our traditional news coverage isn’t going anywhere. We’ll still provide daily articles, columns and photos on our website alongside the print edition each week.

The world of journalism is constantly changing and as student journalists, we’re doing our best to stay ahead of the curve, but the values of the Daily Eastern News remain the same.

We’ll put in the work to provide our readers on campus and beyond with the news they need and want to read. We’ll platform student voices and local issues that may have otherwise not been brought to light.

I have our motto, “Tell the truth and don’t be afraid,” tattooed on my arm.

Honesty and courage are the values I see reflected across the century of coverage from the News, and that’s what you can expect to see this year, too.

Luke Taylor is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at lrtaylor@eiu.edu.