Emily Barske and Austin Anderson waited nervously in the newsroom of the Iowa State Daily, waiting for the publication board to conclude its meeting and call them in for presentations.

Anderson paced. Barske sat, fingers laced together.

Anderson, assistant sports editor, and Barske, special sections editor, were waiting to give their pitch to apply for the position of 2016-2017 editor-in-chief of the Iowa State Daily Media Group. The final decision was in the hands of the publication board, a group of individuals composed of media professionals and student representatives who oversee the media group and make major decisions for the organization.

When Barske, junior in journalism and marketing and the summer intern at the Cedar Rapids Gazette, was chosen for the position, she smiled and respectfully shook hands with Anderson.

“As editor-in-chief, my goal would be to find new, better and different ways to strengthen our relevance in the ISU community,” she said.

Barske will be choosing the editorial staff in the coming weeks, following an internal application process.

In her presentation to the publication board, Barske mapped out major projects and accomplishments she hopes to take on.

Barske said she would like to follow a 60:40 model with her time, spending 60 percent outside of the newsroom interacting with the community and 40 percent with the Daily employees, bringing in what she’s learned while out in the community.

An overhaul of the newsroom and creating a strong staff are other endeavors of Barske’s. She plans to create new positions within the newsroom, including a digital editor and a web analytics coordinator. Not only that, but she said she hopes to revamp another to create the engagement coordinator.

Expanding a digital experience was another aspect of her plan, by creating content how readers want it, when they want it.

“It’s going to be really hard to do, but I think it’s worth doing,” she said. 

As a student who has been involved with many other student organizations, Barske said she identified the Daily as the one that held the most value for her.

“[Other groups] have been focused on one issue or one focus,” Barske said. “The Daily is talking about any issue, and it gives students the opportunity to have a voice. There are so many things we cover, and we have the potential to influence.”

Barske said her experience in various other student organizations will help her to understand her audiences, something Lawrence Cunningham, general manager of the Iowa State Daily Media Group said is a big focus of the overall organization.

“There was a time as a business we just didn’t do a good enough job,” Cunningham said about listening to and implementing feedback from the faculty, staff, students and Ames community members. “We lost touch with our consumers. We’ve made big strides to become relevant again. There’s always more we can be doing to get people the information they want, when they want and the way they want it.”

Cunningham said Barske, with her previous experience, will “lead the charge for our students to engage with their colleagues,” and the Daily will help to allocate resources to highlight underserved parts of the community.

Anderson, another candidate for the position, said in his presentation that despite his youth, he could bring valuable skills to the table with his experience. Not only that, but being a younger editor-in-chief could be an advantage, because he could be a pillar to help create tremendous success.

His plan for the position included sparking creativity in content producers, and to vastly improve the video department to help videographers produce more.

Anderson said he plans to continue working for the Daily as an assistant sports editor, with a hope to cover men’s basketball.

Alex Connor, news reporter, was named as the Daily’s summer editor-in-chief; she was the only individual applying for the position, but current editor-in-chief Danielle Ferguson still dashed from the conference room to give her successor a hug.

As the summer leader, Connor will have to pave the way for Barske’s leadership in the fall and spring semesters.

Connor’s major goals for the summer are to delve into more in-depth articles for the organization’s once-weekly articles, to create a better social media presence on Instagram and to create more focus on photo and video desks, with the hope to potentially allocate more resources to upgrading equipment or studio.

Not only that, but Connor said she will work toward extending dialogue from the Daily.

“Obviously a university, especially Iowa State, is a marketplace of ideas of students growing and learning not only academically but socially,” she said. “As the student media, it’s our job to extend the conversation and open the dialogue and make sure our readership and our community is heard.”

Barske said she would love to hear from anyone with questions, suggestions or comments on how the Iowa State Daily operates in the coming year.