I am not quite sure where to start but, hi, I am Ben Diamond, the former sports editor and incoming Editor-in-Chief for the 2023-2024 academic year.

I am really excited to step into this position, and I am really happy to have the faith of all of my colleagues. This has been a goal of mine since before I even enrolled at SUNY Oswego. I knew that I wanted to write for sports because sports are a passion of mine, but I had aspirations to shoot higher than that. As the Editor-in-Chief I am going to get the chance to see how every  section runs, instead of just sports. This will also allow me to learn how to become a better leader.

I have a good teacher guiding me as I learn the position of the current Editor-in-Chief, Annika Wickham, and I hope I can at least be half as good at pioneering this organization as she has been. She literally changed so much about the paper and created an environment where everyone could thrive. If I can piggyback off of that, making the organization even better, I will have succeeded. It will be extremely difficult to follow up her leadership, but I will do my best.

I am very confident in the abilities of the staff that I have around me, from those who have experience with us and those who are taking their first staff jobs with us. We are all very eager to create the best product week-after-week and I think that creates a great network within the organization.

I have already completed my first promise as the Editor-in-Chief, buying new chairs! During some of the staff meetings, we would have some members sitting on the floor. Well, that will not be the case anymore. With three new chairs on the way, people will not need to sit on the floor. The chairs also look super comfortable so I might need to take one for myself!

I also plan on trying to garner more interest within other majors. Trying to get writers has been an issue way before I joined the paper and the pandemic only made it more difficult. There is always something for someone, anyone to write about. Getting the word out there that it is not as scary as people think is going to be really important. The new managing editor, Faith Smith, already has plenty of ideas that could show that we have a fun group and are welcoming. 

A lot of the issue has to do with the fact that people are really busy. We need to also show that writing stories is not as time consuming as they might think. 

I am really excited to get going when the fall semester starts in a few months. I want the rest of my staff to take this next step with me and continue to build The Oswegonian to what we know it can be.

Thank you for reading our paper every week, you are why we work as hard as we do.

Photo by: Mabel Amber via Pexels