North Texas Daily

Alec Spicer | Editor-in-Chief

When I joined the North Texas Daily as a regular staff writer two and a half years ago, I never imagined that I would one day be editor-in-chief. When I was named editor-in-chief last April, I never imagined being the longest serving editor-in-chief in several decades. I never imagined it would give me gray hair either.

Someone recently said my time here as editor could be described as “summer, fall, spring, forever” but I think it’s time I graduate with my degree in North Texas Daily studies, don’t you?

All jokes aside, we have covered a lot here over the last 360 days.

From looking into the racist past of UNT’s Yucca yearbooks, to an all-winning Mean Green Sports season for the first time in 40 years and the university’s pending use of eminent domain to acquire land currently home to small, local businesses — we’ve done our best.

It hasn’t always been easy and we have made mistakes, but we learned from every single one of them.

And of course none of what we have been able to learn from would have been possible without our readers. Whether you are one of the people who retweets every single story of ours or just picks the paper up when you have to wait for class to start, your support is what drives our commitment to keep you informed.

To my staff of editors, writers, photographers/videographers and illustrators, I cannot thank you enough for all of your hard work over the past year. What I will forever be most proud of in my time as your editor is not how many big stories we broke, awards we received or number of pages we published, but watching your growth and the passion you put into your work. I hope I’ve made you even half as proud as every single one of you have made me.

Now believe it or not — and for those of you who know me personally, this may be hard — but I am optimistic for the future of the Daily.

Please don’t allow the roadblocks you’re up against (remember those budget cuts? or the UNT administration’s suggestions that we should “win more awards” to be recognized?) to discourage you from fighting the good fight. And know that I’ll always be cheering you on from the sidelines now.

My journey here has taken me down several paths. I joined as a regular staff writer for the arts & life section, then became the digital media manager (and eventually the opinion editor at the same time), arts & life editor and now I’ve reached the end of my path here as editor-in-chief. And I will forever be grateful for the invaluable opportunities and experiences this newspaper has presented me with, and I look forward to what is to come from the leading source of news at UNT.

It might be 103 years old, but the Daily is as resilient as ever, and I am extremely proud to have been a part of it.

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Featured Image: North Texas Daily Editor-in-Chief Alec Spicer. Image by: Jordan Collard.