On Tuesday, Jane Switzer and Michael Woods were announced as next year’s Journal’s co-editors in chief.
Twenty-two people voted for the team of Switzer and Woods and seven voted in favour of Andrew Bucholtz, running for editor in chief.
“We’re pretty excited; we’ve been planning this for a while. We’re just excited to be in charge of a place that we love so much,” Woods said. “The Queen’s Journal is a pretty hallowed institution. There are a lot of really great people who have come and gone through here.”
Woods is currently co-features editor at the paper. Switzer is the paper’s news editor.
Switzer said the victory is a testament to both of their experience.
“We both started writing for the Journal when we were in first year. Then we met in second year, when Mike was the sports editor and I was the assistant news editor. We pretty much started planning from there. It was something that we talked about every once and a while and then it really became more concrete. We decided from the beginning of this year just to go for it.”
Switzer said the team plans to continue to develop the paper’s website, which has seen a surge in popularity this year.
“One of the really big things we want to keep developing is our website. In the past two years or so, we’ve grown from having no website to having a website that’s getting more and more hits every year and has a lot of comments and facilitates a lot of discussion.”
Switzer said she and Woods also plan to update the Journal’s aesthetics.
“We also want to look at the overall look of the paper and punch it up in certain places to make it more modern.”
Woods said the paper serves an a crucial role at Queen’s because of its mandate to report exclusively on issues of student concern.
“It’s the main campus media source for students that are interested in knowing what’s going on. I think a lot of people recognize that and that’s why the website has so much traffic. It’s also been such a great chance for alumni to keep in touch with what’s going on in their alma matter.”
Switzer said she and Woods will be hiring their staff for next year’s editorial board shortly.
“The first thing we’re going to do is start hiring people for next year. We definitely want to have as big of a pool of applicants as possible,”she said. “I definitely encourage everyone who has an interest in journalism, a love for strong coffee and good grammar to apply.”
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