The senior class of The Tufts daily, in their own words

by The Tufts Daily News Staff

Editor’s note: The Daily’s editorial department acknowledges that this article is premised on several conflicts of interest. This article is a special feature for the Daily’s Commencement edition that does not represent the Daily’s standard journalistic practices.

The Daily spoke with several seniors who have served on the executive board during their time at Tufts. They represent active and retired staff members with roles ranging from copy editor to editor in chief. Many of them joined the Daily before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and recall working in the newsroom before Tufts sent students home for the spring 2020 semester. Others joined later on, with this school year marking their first time serving on the executive board of the Daily. Here are their stories.

Alexander Janoff

Senior Editor, Spring 2023

Editor in Chief, Spring 2022

by

Ishaan Rajiv Rajabali, News Editor Alex Janoff’s

journey with student journalism actually began in high school but surprisingly not as a writer.

“I was never really a part of the school paper until senior year when [the editor in chief] needed a business manager, and he dragged me along. So, I joined my high school paper as a business manager,” he said, sharing that he soon began to write and realized he wanted to continue with it in college, joining the Daily after attending the general interestmeeting in his first year.

Janoff has participated in many roles at the Daily, but he looked back on his time working on an interactive COVID-19 dashboard with former editor in chief Alex Viveros (LA’22) as the project he was most proud of.

“We noticed over the course of that semester that … we wouldn’t get really consistent data … [and] we would notice that some of the data they would present would kind of conflict with other data,” he said. “I think we did a really good job in informing the community, which is one of the jobs of the newspaper, but also holding the university accountable.”

He added that his funniest Daily-related memory remains working on joke articles for the April Fools’ Issue.

Janoff also discussed his experience of being named in a lawsuit during his tenure as editor in chief in March 2022.

“One of the articles that we put out received some blowback from one of the subjects. … It went back and forth … trying to appease the source and issue a clarification. But it was pretty clear that this person wanted the article written the way they wanted it written, which is not what we do at the Daily,” he explained, elaborating that the lawsuit claimed the article caused emotional distress. “I have a lot of respect for our writers … and I wasn’t [going to] let one of our writers be arm-twisted into changing the article.”

Janoff highlighted his engagement with the Daily community as his biggest takeaway from his four years with the newspaper.

“It’s impossible to put out or produce a newspaper by yourself, and we have such a great team here,” he said. “Handling [team] dynamics was definitely something that was really important.”

He added that he also appreciates how the Daily’s journalism is influenced by how much the team cares about the Tufts community.

“I think it’s hard to be an apathetic journalist,” he said. “We all have some interest in journalism, but I think a lot of our interest is more in telling stories about our community and about our peers.”

For Janoff, being at the Daily means knowing more about Tufts.

“I think remaining engaged with the Daily not only connects you more with the Daily community, but it also connects you a lot more with the Tufts community,” Janoff said. “You really do know what’s going on. And that’s something I really like: being in the know.”

Brendan Hartnett Editorial Editor, Spring

by Aaron Gruen, Executive News Editor

2023

Despite working at the Daily for four years, Brendan Hartnett’s senior spring was his first — and only — semester serving on the executive board. Now, as executive editorial editor, he enjoys having the power to “stir the pot.”

“It’s nice to see that we’re able to get stuff going,” Hartnett said. “My goal has been to use the power of the Editorial Board to make clear