The Minnesota Daily Board of Directors has chosen Niamh Coomey to serve as the new editor-in-chief (EIC) and Avni Tripathi for business operations officer (BOO). They will hold these roles from May 2021 to May 2022.
The EIC and BOO went through a rigorous process of job applications, essay questions and presentations before the Board of Directors made a decision. The EIC oversees all of the editorial decisions, which include the school paper, while the BOO is in charge of the business side of the Daily, including advertising and sales.
Editor-in-chief
Coomey will enter her fourth year as a journalism student this fall. She has been working at the Minnesota Daily since the fall of 2018, when she was a first-year student.
Coomey started on the city desk as a cops and courts reporter. She then switched to the campus activities desk, where she reported on student government, before moving to the campus administration desk, covering staff and faculty. During the 2020-21 school year, she was the campus administration editor.
Before starting at the University of Minnesota, Coomey worked at the Roseville Area High School’s newspaper, the Raider Report, and was promoted to EiC during her senior year of high school.
As the new leader, Coomey hopes to make the Daily more accessible.
“[At the Daily,] we don’t pay a ton, but it is a really big time commitment,” she said. “One thing that I would really like to do is make some of the positions a little more flexible so people can still work at the Daily … but not necessarily have to write two stories a week in order to get paid.”
Coomey also wants to expand the Daily’s social media presence.
“I’m hoping to set up a TikTok manager position,” she said. “Expanding to more platforms that college students use will be helpful for our brand as a paper.”
Daily board member Drew Geraets said in an email that Coomey promised to make the Daily staff represent its community.
“This is a fundamental part of building and maintaining trust with our sources and readers, and will make the Daily an even better place to work,” he said.
Coomey will be working alongside managing editor Hana Ikramuddin.
Business operations officer
In the fall, Tripathi will be a third-year student studying entrepreneurial management with minors in philosophy and product design. She started as a business intern and switched to an account executive in the summer of 2020. She worked as the assistant sales manager during the fall 2020 semester.
Tripathi started in advertising in high school when she began creating ads for a local resort in India. One of her ads was featured in National Geographic.
As BOO, Tripathi hopes to increase Daily hiring and recruitment efforts.
“I want to create another position where we have student recruiters who help us hire people in the business division,” she said. “I want to ensure that incoming students don’t feel disadvantaged because of lack of experience.”
Much like Coomey, Tripathi also wants to create a better social media presence.
“Avni wants to help continue our transition to more digital initiatives,” said Geraets. “Being able to grow our website and social media presence, and develop new digital products, is important to ensure we can support our business and advertising partners in the future.”
