Letter from the editor: The conversations that matter

Opinion by Joseph Beyda
Feb. 4, 2015, 9:26 p.m.

When I think about The Stanford Daily, I think about community.

For 122 years, The Daily has provided the Stanford community with its news and a center of campus discussion. For the last decade or so, The Daily has provided the greater online community with a window into the Farm. And for the last four years, The Daily has provided me with a community of awesome, motivated people who have shaped my Stanford experience. (If I got married tomorrow, at least a couple of staffers would be groomsmen.)

But as we continue to move into an era of technology and communication, those communities — and how they consume information — are all changing in their own ways. The Daily is changing with them.

Above all else, we’re rethinking how we reach you, our readers. For most of our organization’s long history, it was enough to drop off stacks of papers across campus each morning. Even more recently, it was enough to post our articles online and let readers stumble upon them. We recognize that media doesn’t work that way anymore, especially not for an audience as busy as the Stanford student body.

You shouldn’t have to find The Stanford Daily; we should find you.

Hopefully, you’ll see that vision take form over the next four and a half months. We’re redoubling our commitment to digital media, between our various social media channels, our daily email digest and our upcoming mobile app. We’re refining our outreach on this campus, everything from how our paper is distributed to how we involve graduate students in our coverage and staff.

At the same time, we won’t stray from our core. A week like last one — with the upsetting stories about Brock Turner, Joe Lonsdale and Silicon Shutdown — once again convinced me of The Daily’s value to this campus in conducting responsible, professional journalism. We’ll continue to act as a hub for conversations about the issues that really matter to this community. Volume 247 will be about bringing those conversations directly to you.

Thanks for reading.

Joseph Beyda ’15

President and editor in chief, Volume CCXLVII

Contact Joseph Beyda at jbeyda ‘at’ stanford.edu

Joseph Beyda is the editor in chief of The Stanford Daily. Previously he has worked as the executive editor, webmaster, football editor, a sports desk editor, the paper's summer managing editor and a beat reporter for football, baseball and women's soccer. He co-authored The Daily's recent football book, "Rags to Roses," and covered the soccer team's national title run for the New York Times. Joseph is a senior from Cupertino, Calif. majoring in Electrical Engineering. To contact him, please email jbeyda "at" stanford.edu.

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