You’ve seen The Roundup, the articles, the writers, and maybe you’ve been interviewed and quoted in an article. But what goes on behind the scenes? Who is there day after day, making sure that everything runs smoothly?
The Editor-In-Chief and the Managing Editor are essential in completing this task. They are, after all, the leaders of the newspaper, and The Roundup is pleased to announce who will fill those roles next year. Martin Flores ’17 will be the 2016-2017 Editor-In-Chief, and Will Aberger ’17 will be the Managing Editor.
Dr. Michael Degen, English department co-chair and moderator of The Roundup, explained, “The two jobs have different skill sets…The Managing Editor is a guy who’s really good at organizing and moving through lists and methodically checking that the newspaper is actually running.” The Managing Editor, in effect, is really the one “running the paper” behind the scenes, he stated.
In contrast, Dr. Degen noted, “The Chief is the PR guy…He needs to be a fairly extroverted person.” It is the Editor-In-Chief’s responsibility to be the face of the paper. Degen also talked about the challenge of finding the right partnership, two students who could complement each other. “With Flores and Aberger we probably have one of the more talented combinations that we’ve ever had before,” he said, praising how “gifted Aberger and Flores are in their respective jobs.”
Martin Flores is very satisfied with the position, saying, “It’s very relieving, and I’m very happy that this is the culmination of all the hard work and time that I’ve put into The Roundup.” He spoke about goals that he has for next year, hoping to work on “getting more in the minds of day to day students. We already see that with the Moodle addition.”
Indeed, Moodle has a brand-new feature on the left side of the home page: a collection of The Roundup’s most recent articles constantly scrolling to make it easier to find an article you want to read. In other ways, Flores wants to “[show] the students what they really are interested in” and “[put]our product out there,” a viewpoint echoed by Dr. Degen. On the role of the Chief, he said, “He thinks about the larger parts of the paper. How can we get hits? What stories are going to really attract people?”
However, the man that absolutely needs to be extremely well-acquainted with The Roundup’s inner workings is Will Aberger. In that respect, he is going into next year with an immense advantage. “I have a unique position in The Roundup because I have already served as Managing Editor for about 4 months; so I am coming into senior year unlike any of the Managing Editors before me,” he stated. “Already knowing how to do the job will give me time to also focus on ideas that will improve the newspaper instead of solely focusing on managing the staff.”
With his veteran experience to aid him next year, he will be able to do just that. Specifically, he “hope[s] to increase the efficiency of our staff so that we can publish more pieces each week.” He continued, “Additionally, Martin and I hope to recruit more incoming freshmen to join The Roundup.”
Senior Alex Motter will graduate in a few weeks and will step down from his current position as Editor-In-Chief. Yet, he is not nervous about where the paper is heading without him. “This year we broke the glass ceiling on what is expected of a student newspaper, interviewing people in New York and taking our content to the next level of excellence,” he noted. ” I’m really looking forward to seeing what…The Roundup staff do with the paper next year!”
Under the leadership of Flores and Aberger, that year is shaping up to be one of the best yet for the newspaper. Check The Roundup daily to see where we go and how we grow over the next year!
