The story of The Northern Light so far…

My name is Matthew Schmitz, and I am the executive editor of UAA’s student-run newspaper, The Northern Light. I joined the paper in the spring of 2022 as a reporter; by fall I was executive editor.

They say people get promoted fast in a crisis, and that largely explains my rise in seven short months.

At the time, the story of The Northern Light was a common one: The pandemic had severely disrupted operations; student engagement was at an all-time low; and the skeleton crew working the paper was just trying to keep it afloat.

Jake Dye, the previous executive editor, witnessed a ray of hope as he successfully returned to printing that spring.

But Jake was graduating, and there weren’t many other options for executive editor. The other staff members were David Harding, who was also graduating, and Dylan Flos, an aviation major who was more interested in flying airplanes than running a paper.

And honestly, who can blame him?

So, I applied for executive editor and got it. Thankfully, Jake helped me over the summer as I learned how to design a layout, edit stories and sell advertising.

Despite Jake’s help, I was acutely aware of the lost institutional knowledge.

When you get a job, you’re often surrounded by experienced staff who can help you learn the ropes. With the two most experienced people leaving and nearly all the work being remote, I felt like those normal opportunities to see “how it’s done around here” were missing.

So, I treated every instruction from Jake like a commandment. I read organizational documents — previous org charts, staff policies, job descriptions, etc. — like sacred texts, trying to piece together how to manage a newspaper.

I wasn’t entirely alone, though. I had my two advisors: Zac Clark and Paola Banchero. And I’m eternally grateful for their guidance.

But The Northern Light is a student-run newspaper, which meant they could only offer advice; ultimately, it was my responsibility to make the decisions.  

My original plan had been to stand the paper up and then retreat into a reporter position while I completed my journalism degree. But as the poem goes, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

I underestimated the complexity of trying to bring back all the aspects of an organization that had lost so much institutional knowledge. Aside from Dylan, every staff member going into that fall semester was new. Suddenly, I was trying to manage a group of people and do things I had only read and heard about.

Everything we did felt like breaking new ground: learning how to work together as a team, editing stories, promoting other leaders, selling advertising, pitching stories — all while still largely working remotely.

Remote work continues to be one of the enduring blessings and curses of the pandemic.

I can’t emphasize enough my awe for how well the staff has coped with it. It’s an extraordinary skill we all had to learn, and it will serve us well for the rest of our lives.

But with remote work comes a lack of cohesion and the continued difficulty of rebuilding lost institutional knowledge.

We’re now spending more time in the office, but striking a balance remains hard. Still, we continue to adapt and only get better at managing it.

So where does the paper stand today? In better shape than I could have hoped for.

We have a staff of 19 people. We’re printing roughly every other week. We have a weekly email newsletter, new multimedia projects and we’re selling advertising space.

I owe a huge thanks to all the people who have been a part of bringing the paper back to life. I know I’ve tried the staff’s patience — and my advisor’s patience — as I’ve experimented with different organizational schemes.

My biggest pride is that we have a staff that’s stepping up, coming together and taking ownership of The Northern Light. Their dedication has made this a success.

All I can say to them is thank you.