Medill junior Libby Nelson will be The Daily Northwestern’s next editor in chief, the Students Publishing Co., announced Thursday evening.
Nelson, a former development editor and current campus editor, will begin the job Spring Quarter.
Although Nelson was the only applicant for the position for the third consecutive year, she has “a tremendous vision” for moving the newspaper forward, said Medill professor Charles Whitaker.
“Even though she was our only candidate, I think the Board left feeling very confident that we were leaving The Daily in very good hands,” said Whitaker, the chairman of the publishing board.
Whitaker and Abe Rakov, The Daily’s current editor in chief, attributed the new tradition of having only one candidate to a self-selection process within the newsroom.
“I think people know who’s going to apply, and if they know that person is capable, they don’t feel the need to apply against them,” said Rakov, a Medill senior.
Rakov said Nelson’s passion for The Daily and journalism made her the right person for the job.
“I can sleep at night – literally – knowing I’m handing the job over to someone who I know can do the job,” he said.
Nelson jumped into her Daily career as a freshman, working as a beat reporter and designer.
She worked as Associated Student Government reporter during her sophomore year under Rakov, who was the campus editor at the time.
She went on to cover NU’s administration, breaking news “and everything else that needed to be done,” she said.
In the fall, she went on her Journalism Residency at the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, where she covered community news and worked on an investigative reporting project.
Nelson said she began thinking about applying for the position over the summer and finalized her plans just a few days ago.
“I remember at one point in August I started making a list of all the ideas and all of the things I wanted to do,” she said. “It’s time to make changes a lot of other newspapers have been making since the ’90s.”
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