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Episode 150: Meet the future of The Minnesota Daily with Amelia Roessler and Spencer White

Producer Kaylie Sirovy sat down with future Minnesota Daily leaders, Amelia Roessler and Spencer White, to discuss their favorite stories, office shenanigans and what they’re looking forward to as incoming Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor.

KAYLIE SIROVY: I totally understand the cold hands thing. My hands, even in the summertime, my hands are freezing. 

AMELIA ROESSLER: I’m the only person who walks around in the summer with long pants and sweatshirts because I’m just freezing all the time. 

SPENCER WHITE: Do you think you’re anemic? 

ROESSLER: I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I thought I was for a while, but then I got tested and they’re like, no. 

ROESSLER: I don’t think I am.

SIROVY: I was like, I don’t believe you. 

ROESSLER: I also just tolerate heat. So like, I’ll go out with a sweatshirt on and just like everybody else is sweating and I’m just like it’s fine. 

SIROVY: I just like sweatshirts. 

WHITE: Love a sweater.

ROESSLER: Yeah, I love sweatshirts. 

WHITE: Very comfy. 

SIROVY: As you guys are both wearing sweatshirts. Hi everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from The Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, the podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.

In the studio with me today are, so exciting, my two future bosses. So we have Amelia, the managing, future managing editor, and then Spencer, the future editor-in-chief. How are we feeling today? 

ROESSLER: Good.

WHITE: Pretty good. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: How we feeling about the new job starting in June? 

WHITE: Excited and a little nervous. Don’t want to burn the place down. 

ROESSLER: No, we won’t. 

SIROVY: You’re gonna do great. I trust you guys. So first off, let’s kind of take a trip through memory lane. What has been your guys’ favorite parts about working here? 

WHITE: Definitely just meeting people. I know some of the most fun I’ve had was when we went on our trip to Atlanta. Everything that went down there, the escapades we got up to. It was just a great time. Everything from that. Cole mentioned it in his farewell podcast a few months back, but just messing around at weekaheads meetings. Some of the most fun I’ve had at my entire time at the University of Minnesota.  

SIROVY: Yeah, weekaheads are really fun. Even though they’re meetings, we can get into some shenanigans. 

WHITE: Yeah, we can.

SIROVY: Amelia, what about you? 

ROESSLER: I did not go on the trip, but just being here in the office has been incredibly fun, especially coming in to edit and just hang out with everybody. It’s like in between waiting for stories to come in and it’s just like, what’s some stuff that we can get up to? And it’s just so fun just to be around everybody.

SIROVY: Okay, so what have been your favorite stories that you’ve either helped publish or you did publish?

WHITE: Ooh, honestly, I mean, a lot of what Leo Hupke, he’s been doing this semester, I’ve been getting really excited about. He’s been a new voice for the opinion section. I guess stuff I’ve worked on. Earlier this semester, I got to write basically a hit piece about like a megachurch, so that was fun. I enjoyed doing stuff like that.

SIROVY: That one got a lot of comments. 

WHITE: Not everyone was super happy with me. 

ROESSLER: I’ve done a lot of stories this year. I feel like a lot of them, some of them have been like more like heavy, more important pieces like rape in Residence Halls, or like suicides off the Washington Avenue Bridge. But, personally, the more fun ones was when I wrote about the UMN Gospel Choir.

That was so fun. I went to a practice, and I was like, I can’t stay seated because everybody stands up to sing. And so I, like, stood up and I, like, started singing with them, and it was so fun. Or, the ROTC, Life in a, Day in the life of an ROTC student. That was fun. Woke up at 5 in the morning to go to morning PT. That was interesting, but some of my favorites. 

SIROVY: You woke up at 5 in the morning? 

ROESSLER: Well, they had PT at like 6. It was either 6 or 6:30. And so I woke up super early, had to walk all the way to the armory, and met the guy that I was interviewing. And he’s like, yeah, okay, we’re just gonna like go into the field house. Everybody’s like they’re wearing matching shirts and shorts and shoes and they’re just all matching and I felt so out of place, but it was so fun. 

SIROVY: Were they like, what are you doing here? 

ROESSLER: Yeah, I got a lot of looks. So I just kind of like kept to the outskirts and then, but nobody ever said anything and then at one point like one of the leaders came up to me and they’re like, “can I help you with something?” And I was like, “um, no I’m just following that guy around for the day,” but they were so nice once they knew what I was there for.

WHITE: I don’t think I’ve ever gotten up at 5 in the morning and thought, “ah, that was fun.”

ROESSLER: In the moment, I did not think it was fun. It was more, I was more like nervous, but afterwards, when I was like, falling asleep here at 8pm doing edits, I was like, “Yeah, super fun morning.” Had a time.

SIROVY: Just a time?

ROESSLER: A grand time. 

SIROVY: What has been, this is maybe a little tougher question, funniest moments?

ROESSLER: Honestly, anything Georgia says. 

WHITE: That’s fair, yeah. 

ROESSLER: Like being in the room with Georgia, just like feeding off her energy is so funny. Like we leg wrestled. That was funny. 

WHITE: Yeah.

SIROVY: You leg wrestled? 

ROESSLER: In the office. Cause we were talking, Georgia and I have this like running joke that we’re just going to fight each other. Obviously it’s never going to happen, but like, it’s the running joke. And so it’s like, one day I was like, “okay, you want to like leg wrestle?” And she’s like, “what’s that?” And I was like, okay, now I got to show you what leg wrestling is. And so we, in the office, I tried to show her how to leg wrestle. It didn’t work out. 

WHITE: Now listeners, if you want to take bets on who will win this fight, you can find my email, [email protected]

ROESSLER: If we find a, if we decide on a time and place for this famed fight, we will let it be known. 

SIROVY: Moe’s gonna come out on top. 

ROESSLER: Oh my gosh! 

SIROVY: Moe’s our mascot.

WHITE: It’ll be a W.W.E. event. 

SIROVY: Spencer, this one is for you, and then Amelia, why did you want to be editor-in-chief?

WHITE: I mean, I care a lot about the Minnesota Daily, I’ve had a lot of fun here, and unfortunately Alex has passed away and —

SIROVY: We should clarify that he means that, not literally, means he’s just not gonna be here at The Daily anymore.

WHITE: He’s moved on from The Minnesota Daily, he’s alive and not dead.

SIROVY: Thank you.

WHITE: So he’s moved on, and I don’t know, it just seemed like a good next step for me, and like, I just want to do whatever I can to make sure The Minnesota Daily is running well, and like, being a part of it as much as I can. I feel like, gives me the best opportunity to do that.

SIROVY: Amelia, why did you want to be EIC? 

ROESSLER: Well, I’ve been a reporter for about a year now, which has been fun, but I was like, I’m ready to, I want to be in a leadership position. And while being the desk editor would have been fun, I was like, “okay, but the EIC application is opening up. Why not just like shoot for like the biggest one I can get?” Going through that entire process with everybody was, I learned so much, not only about The Daily, but about myself and about my fellow coworkers here and it was so fun. I was really happy when they chose Spencer though for EIC because obviously I know he’s going to do a fantastic job and I’m just so fortunate that he wanted me to be his coworker working next to him in this whole thing. So that’s kind of why I wanted to do it. 

SIROVY: How’d you make that decision, Spencer? 

WHITE: I had talked to Amelia a little bit about it before, like we knew who the next EIC was going to be. I mean, I admire Amelia’s work a lot. We get along really well and I think we’ll work well together. So it was pretty just a straightforward decision, I think. 

SIROVY: Oh, that’s super sweet.

ROESSLER: I know.

SIROVY: He did a little heart with his hands for those who can’t see. What are your — what are you most looking forward to being in these positions? Because for those who don’t know, being editor in chief and managing editor, you kind of have final say on a lot of stuff.

ROESSLER: I guess I’m looking forward to being in a leadership position and being able to help reporters and editors with things that they need and then being able to help Spencer in his endeavors and be able to kind of just make The Daily better. 

WHITE: I’m excited to like, start with like some new projects and like move The Daily in a new interesting direction with some new stuff we want to start trying, maybe some video stuff. Just trying to expand what we do.

SIROVY: Short and sweet. Okay. This can kind of go for a lot of stuff, what was either the hardest part about the presentations, about becoming a candidate, like, because you guys had to do a lot of stuff for this. 

WHITE: Oh, it was so stressful. 

ROESSLER: It was a long process. 

WHITE: It was like two months, wasn’t it? 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: So when did you guys put out your applications? 

WHITE: I think we had to submit our applications February?

ROESSLER:  20?

WHITE: 28?

ROESSLER: Yeah, 28. 

WHITE: And then March 28 was when like they made the decision after we presented to the board. 

ROESSLER: But we were meeting before our applications were even due. 

WHITE: Yeah, at like the start of the semester I think. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: Yeah, so it was a long process we had to put together like this application packet which was like 20 pages or something.

ROESSLER: It was ginormous.

WHITE: It was huge. And then, you know, a presentation and giving like a speech to people who decide your fate. It felt like a reality show. It was weird. 

SIROVY: It kind of did feel like a reality show. As someone who was watching your guys’ presentations for the reporters and editors and whatnot, and for people in admin and business. We were, it did feel a little like a reality show. Like you guys just kept coming in and like, then you would leave and then a new person would come in and it’s like, “oh, pick your favorite. Who gets the rose?” 

ROESSLER: It felt like really reality show like the night that we presented to the board because we all came in at like four or five. I don’t remember. 

WHITE: Yeah, I was in at like three or something editing.

ROESSLER: Yeah, and so, but the presentations didn’t start till like 5:30, 6. And so we were just sitting up here. We were on the fourth floor, our presentations were on the first floor. And so they’d text us one at a time to go down and present. So the rest of us are just waiting up here. And then after we all presented, we were all just sitting up here for like an hour?

WHITE: We were here till like 11. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: 11:30. 

ROESSLER: But we were all just sitting up here like in a circle just talking. Like waiting for them to decide our fate. 

WHITE: We played hide and seek around the office for like an hour. 

SIROVY: You did?

ROESSLER: Yeah, we did.

SIROVY: Who was winning a lot?

WHITE: Jack’s really good at hide and seek. Jack’s really good at hide and seek. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: Did you not find him?

WHITE: He was hard to find. He had good hiding spots. He was very quiet.

SIROVY: That’s crazy cause he’s not small either.

ROESSLER: No, he can like put himself in small spaces. 

WHITE: He like folds himself. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Just picturing Jack folded in like a filing cabinet or something. Amelia, this is a question for you. What was your favorite part about being a reporter? 

ROESSLER: Being a reporter? Honestly, just like, the reason why I love being a journalist is that I learn new things every day, and I got to learn new things about my campus and about people around my campus every day. And then like, afterwards, I get to like, walk around campus and be like, “oh, I know you!” Like, I did a story about you! Like, it was just really fun to make a lot of connections. 

SIROVY: And now I kind of want to talk about the quote book. 

WHITE: Oh, no. 

ROESSLER: Yes.

SIROVY: So, we talked about this with Maddie and Alex in the previous episode, but Amelia is kind of taking up the torch, as Alex was saying, for the new quote book for the next year. And what is on it so far?

ROESSLER: Can I read some? Is that allowed? 

SIROVY: Yeah, you can read some. 

ROESSLER: Okay. 

WHITE: Pick them wisely. 

SIROVY: Yeah, pick them wisely. 

ROESSLER: Wisely? There’s a lot. I will say there’s a lot of Georgia and Spencer quotes on here. 

WHITE: While you’re finding that Amelia also put together a Kahoot for our last all staff meeting of the year. 

SIROVY: Oh my gosh, yes. The Kahoot. 

WHITE: Our quotes of the year and I was on there too many times I think.

SIROVY: It was kind of comedic how many times, like even if it wasn’t your quote people would have thought it was you.

WHITE: I was an option on like half of them. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: No, you were on the options, whether it was you or not, you were on the options on pretty much all of them. 

SIROVY: Who made that choice?

ROESSLER: I did because I had to make it difficult for everybody. 

WHITE: Fair. Me and Noah were like, go to like random choices. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: You and Georgia, too. 

WHITE: Georgia, too.

ROESSLER: Georgia towards the end.

SIROVY: Yeah. Georgia was in there a bit too. 

ROESSLER: I was just surprised with over a hundred quotes that I could have put in, HR only vetoed four, so that’s a win. 

SIROVY: I know, and Charlie was on like half of them. 

ROESSLER: Charlie was on a lot of them. 

SIROVY: I was very surprised at that. 

ROESSLER: Okay, ready for some quotes? So Georgia has said recently, “if you say SPJ three times and spin in a circle, Seth Richardson appears.”

SIROVY: That one’s a little, kind of an inside joke for those who like aren’t 

journalists at The Daily. 

ROESSLER: That’s true, but it’s really funny. Alex Karwowski said, “you ever look at birds and think that they’re Nerf footballs?” 

SIROVY: That is the future sports editor, ladies and gentlemen. 

WHITE: An encapsulation of who he is, I think. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: Logan Anderson, on admin desk, is currently working on a story, or worked on a story about he talked to some guy who was an expert in deer urine, I think?

SIROVY: Oh, this was for the, was it the hunter hunter thing? 

ROESSLER: Yeah! 

SIROVY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

ROESSLER: And so his quote on here is, “Steve Porter, a deer urine merchant, told me to do it.” Oh, you said yesterday, “that one was supposed to keep secret because Alexis was gonna make fun of us.”

SIROVY: Oh, yeah. 

WHITE: Uh, yeah. 

ROESSLER: That was weekaheads. 

WHITE: Alexis makes fun of me a lot.

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Alexis, for those who don’t know, is A&E editor. We’re saying, we keep saying all these names, but like, some people don’t know who they are. 

WHITE: Yeah.

ROESSLER: A lot of these are like inside jokes. 

SIROVY: Yeah, that just shows how much of a family we are here. 

ROESSLER: I know. I was just going to say, did we tell you we’re going to paint a mural in the office?

WHITE: Oh yeah. 

SIROVY: Do tell me more. 

ROESSLER: It’s going to be Goldie and Moe. 

SIROVY: Holding hands or something? 

ROESSLER: Possibly. 

WHITE: I’m petitioning for it to be them being married. 

SIROVY: I don’t think that’s going to fly by HR.

ROESSLER: Right, so that’s why the holding hands is a good option.

SIROVY: So where would this be? 

ROESSLER: Right when you like walk, like the big table and then on the left, like right past it.

SIROVY: Uh huh.

ROESSLER: And then there’s a printer room.

SIROVY: Okay.

ROESSLER: That, there’s like that open area. 

SIROVY: Ohhhh! That’d be super cute. I wish we had more stuff like that here in the office. 

ROESSLER: That’s what I’m saying. 

SIROVY: Like literally I just bought string lights today and I’m like oh my gosh, why didn’t I do this like a year ago? It makes it so much nicer in here.

What are you guys most nervous for in this upcoming year? Because this you guys are going to go through a lot as Maddie and Alex put it they were like talking to each other like 24/7. What are you guys, I’m, not gonna say scared because that’s a horrible way to put it. What are you guys nervous about? 

WHITE: Just like every day like making sure we’re putting out like quality content like I’ve I feel like over time that’s gonna, it’s just going to be stressful to have to like always have that on your mind. I feel pretty confident that we’ll be able to do a good job of that.

ROESSLER: Yeah. I definitely think there’s nothing that’s going to come up that we won’t be able to handle. 

SIROVY: I love that. I’m super excited. I love Maddie and Alex, but I love you guys too. 

ROESSLER: We love you, too.

WHITE: We love you, too, Kaylie. And I also love Alex and Maddie and I want it to be noted I said that before Amelia did.

ROESSLER: Wow. 

SIROVY: He did that.

ROESSLER: Cause I can’t say it now because then it just sounds weird. 

SIROVY: Cause then it just seems like you’re copying him. 

WHITE: It seems like you don’t love them now. 

SIROVY: Spencer, why’d you do that? 

WHITE: It was a power play. 

SIROVY: Oh my god. 

ROESSLER: For the record, I do love Maddie and Alex. 

SIROVY: Let it be noted.

ROESSLER: Let it be noted. 

SIROVY: Let the courtroom know. Will you guys be in contact with each other like 24/7 like the way Maddie and Alex were? Do you plan on doing that? 

WHITE: I mean, I think it’ll probably be essential. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: It’s less of a whether or not we want to because I would rather never speak to you ever if I had the option.

ROESSLER: That is the preferable method. 

WHITE: But we’ll probably be 24/7, especially when we get in like the swing of things and like have fires to put out every day like Alex and Maddie do.

SIROVY: Cause you will. You most definitely will have fires to put out.

WHITE: Comes with the territory. 

ROESSLER: Well, hopefully we’ll just, everybody will be in the office more. And so then we won’t have to like text or do that communication. We’ll just be able to be in the office together. 

WHITE: And we can just yell at each other from across the room. 

ROESSLER: Right. 

WHITE: I think you should get like, you should get a bell to summon me like. 

ROESSLER: A bell? Yeah, I can do that. I will get a bell. Is there ones that I can, or like a button that I can like customize?

SIROVY: Like a pager.

ROESSLER: Spencer! Yeah.

SIROVY: Spencer pager.

ROESSLER: Spencer pager. 

WHITE: I like this. I like this a lot. 

SIROVY: What was either like the sweetest moment here or the most memorable.

WHITE: Before we get into that.

SIROVY: Oh.

WHITE: I do want to bring something up for funniest moment. I don’t know if you remember this, but do you remember when Alex threw my wallet down like 10 flights? 

SIROVY: Oh my god, it was like 10 o’clock at night 

WHITE: Like 10 stories.

SIROVY: Backstory, we were in Atlanta. We were coming back from like dinner or something? 

WHITE: It was our first night there. I had just, we, me and Maddie were like the last people to get there on the flight. And we had just gotten there. 

SIROVY: Oh, cause we were all in the hotel room. 

WHITE: Yeah, yeah. 

SIROVY: And so we were walking back. And so we had that, we had the hotel room door open and Spencer was like, “where’s my wallet?” And Alex finds it, throws it. It goes out the open door down like 10 flights, more than 10 flights. Cause we were on like what, like 16, floor 16 at that point.

WHITE: I think we’re on floor like 22. 

SIROVY: Yeah. It goes down, like this is, like super late at night. People are just trying to go back to their hotel rooms and sleep. Alex just, you see the wallet go flying out the door. 

WHITE: My favorite part about it is he threw it to me and it hit the ground about four feet before it got to me too, and it rolled off. 

SIROVY: Yup, yup. I remember that. That’s, wow. 

WHITE: Yeah. 

SIROVY: That was funny. 

WHITE: I was lucky. All of my, like, cards landed on the floor right below us, and then my wallet itself, caught by a planter. Like, ten floors below us. 

SIROVY: Yeah, cause on every floor they had like fake planters around. 

WHITE: Yeah. Yeah.

ROESSLER: Here I was thinking Alex through this purposefully down the stairs. 

WHITE: No, he just missed.

SIROVY: No, he just had terrible aim. 

WHITE: He felt so bad. 

SIROVY: He did. I remember, like I saw that happen and I was like, oh my god. I just fell to the ground laughing with I think I was with Amirah and we were just dying. 

WHITE: Full disclosure. It was completely my fault. He said “I don’t want to throw this,” and I said, “nah, you can throw it.” 

SIROVY: Yeah, that was a good time. There’s so many good memories from Atlanta. I’m excited for this year. Are we going to this one this year? 

WHITE: Yeah, 

ROESSLER: We better. 

WHITE: This year’s is in New Orleans. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: N’orleans. 

SIROVY: I’m excited and last time we went around halloween and that was super fun. But so many memories from Atlanta.

WHITE: It was iconic. Plus, you and Noah with the BarbenHeimer. 

SIROVY: Oh, yeah. I dressed up as President Barbie and Noah dressed up as Oppenheimer. It was super fun and we didn’t even plan that that was just like, that just happened. 

WHITE: Plus you guys dressed up so that we could walk to Waffle House. That was our big destination.

SIROVY: Okay. Yeah, well we couldn’t really go to like a Halloween party because we were at a work conference and so we just went to a Waffle House. 

WHITE: And mostly underage, too. 

SIROVY: And mostly underage, that’s true. 

WHITE: So we can’t go to a bar. 

SIROVY: Yeah, no. So we went to Waffle House. That was a good choice. I took one of the greatest photos I ever have of you, Cole, Noah and Alex.

WHITE: Yeah, yeah. 

SIROVY: Still one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. They were like all buddy, buddy. It was super cute. 

WHITE: We were cuddling with each other in bed all week, like we got close. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: Every day is memorable. 

SIROVY: Good answer. 

WHITE: It’s like you’re putting up a sign in my mom’s bedroom or something. 

SIROVY: What? 

WHITE; Make every day count. 

SIROVY: Oh, like the cat poster like, hang in there.

WHITE: Yeah, like some live, laugh, love stuff. 

SIROVY: Oh no. What do your family think about your new jobs? 

WHITE: My mom’s really excited. 

SIROVY: Aww. 

WHITE: Yeah, my dad is too, but my mom is more like, what’s the word I’m looking for? My mom gets like real, real excited about it I guess. 

SIROVY: The only way a mom could.

WHITE: Oh yeah. 

ROESSLER: That’s cool. Honestly, I haven’t really discussed it a whole lot with my parents. When you asked me, like the day you asked me to be your managing editor was like, I texted and I was like, “guess who’s officially the managing editor?” And then I just got like the thumbs up emoji from my dad and my mom was like, “cool.” And then that was.

SIROVY: And that was it. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. And then I wrote about it in my column for my hometown newspaper. And then I got a text from my grandpa, who was like, “congrats on that new job!” And so, they’re supportive.

SIROVY: What have you guys told your, like, your friends and stuff? You’re gonna be like, “hey, this, my life is gonna look drastically different the next year.”

WHITE: I’ve told my friends about it. I think most of them, most of them just like to use it to kind of make fun of me, so. 

SIROVY: Oh my gosh. 

WHITE: Which is fair, I deserve it. 

ROESSLER: No, why would you say that?

WHITE: Oh, I need to be kept in check. 

ROESSLER: You can do like the power play though, you can be like, “yeah, but I am like the Minnesota Daily.”

SIROVY: I am Batman. 

WHITE: I’m going to just like pull a Clark Kent and just like rip off my shirt and there’s just going to be my other Minnesota Daily shirt under it. 

ROESSLER: Right. 

WHITE: Every like social function I go to for the rest of the year. 

SIROVY: We need to get more t-shirts. 

WHITE: We do. 

ROESSLER: We do need more t-shirts. 

SIROVY: And more stickers. I love the stickers that they, the sticker that they did last time. It was like, “if I had a nickel for every time a gas leak went off, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?” 

WHITE: I want more of like Ivan’s weird stickers about like aliens and Julian Assange.

SIROVY: Yeah, where’d he get those?

WHITE: I have no idea. 

ROESSLER: I think we need Moe stickers. 

WHITE: Yes.

SIROVY: We need Moe stickers.

ROESSLER: We need to bring Moe back into the spotlight.

WHITE: We need to figure out what happened to his hat. 

SIROVY: He has a hat?

ROESSLER: I don’t know. 

WHITE: He had like a flat bill hat. 

ROESSLER: I have a picture.

WHITE: There’s like a hole on top of it where it used to go. 

SIROVY: I had no idea he had a hat. 

WHITE: I don’t know if someone stole the hat or if it just fell off, but 

SIROVY: Oh my god, it even says his name! That’s so cute! 

ROESSLER: I went to a Northern Exposure, like, photojournalism conference, and then one of the speakers, she was like, “yeah, I graduated here, I worked at The Daily,” and then pulled up this old picture! And it’s Moe! And I was like, no way. 

SIROVY: That’s crazy. How do you guys plan on, cause I know this is kind of a boring question and they kind of asked it in the presentations that you were supposed to answer. But again, super busy job. How do you guys plan on doing that with like your schedule? Like, I’m just curious myself cause like, I’m an editor. And I have another job after this and I have full time schoolwork and it can get very overwhelming. You guys that’s like doubled. 

WHITE: I plan to spend a lot of time here after class. I know that. My class loads gonna go down a little bit next semester. I had to load up a little bit last couple months, but so I’ll have a little bit more free time next semester, so shouldn’t be too horrible. Eventually, I won’t have to take Italian anymore. And then my schedule will really clear up.

ROESSLER: You’re taking Italian? 

WHITE: Unfortunately. 

SIROVY: Language classes take, they are five credits. There’s so much homework for no reason. 

WHITE: Yeah, I’d take four semesters worth. Yeah, mi chiamo Spencer. That’s about as far as we’re getting today.

ROESSLER: I quit after 3015 of Spanish. Just cause two hours long of Spanish class was not for me. 

SIROVY: Yeah, no. Oh, you took Spanish? I took French. 

WHITE: It’s crazy that you took a language class that starts with a number that isn’t one.

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: I went to Spain and I was like, I should probably have a little more under my belt because my host mom didn’t speak any English and so that worked out. 

SIROVY: Lots of hand gestures, probably. 

ROESSLER: Right, lots of me using Spanish dictionary and showing her my phone.

WHITE: Did you learn the language better that way? 

ROESSLER: I did. I mean, we sat down for dinner every night and talked and she would, she didn’t correct me a lot, but like when she did correct me, it was really helpful. 

SIROVY: Oh, that’s sweet though. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, she was incredibly sweet. 

SIROVY: People say that they love study abroad, but I just, that’s a lot. To like go to another country for, was it a semester?

ROESSLER: It was a semester. Personally, I think going anything less than a semester isn’t worth it. 

SIROVY: Really?

ROESSLER: Like, of course it is worth it and it’s going to be a, you’re going to have a great time. But like, it wasn’t until like the, like halfway, three quarter mark that I was like really like, okay, really getting into it. This is like actually being able to enjoy it. 

SIROVY: Oh, that’s fun though. I want to go to Dublin. 

ROESSLER: Dublin would be so fun. I want to go to Scotland so bad.

SIROVY: Me too.

WHITE: I want to go to Australia after graduation. 

SIROVY: Why Australia? 

WHITE: I think they’ll understand me.

SIROVY: That’s very vague, but very specific. 

WHITE: I think they’ll get it. I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I think they will. 

WHITE: I also want to tumble with a kangaroo. 

SIROVY: The kangaroo will absolutely destroy you. 

WHITE: Have you seen that one video of the dude punching it to save his dog? I could do that. I could get there. 

SIROVY: That was adrenaline. That was in the moment.

ROESSLER: Isn’t Australia the one with like the giant spiders and bugs and stuff? 

SIROVY: Yeah and the very poisonous ones. Yeah. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, I don’t think I could that.

WHITE: But like, have you seen Mad Max? It’s cool, dude. 

ROESSLER: I’ve not seen Mad Max. 

SIROVY: Isn’t Mad Max like set in the future? 

WHITE: It’s post-apocalyptic.

SIROVY: Yeah. That’s probably why. I have also not seen Mad Max. 

ROESSLER: Anyway, sorry, I interrupted your question of what you’re gonna do to.

SIROVY: That’s okay. It’s more of an open forum here. Anything else you guys want to talk about? 

ROESSLER: Bringing back the Kahoot. I think we should make that a semester thing. 

WHITE: Agreed.

SIROVY: They used to it like every month for our all staff meetings 

ROESSLER: Every month? 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: Okay, but are people gonna like be tired of like the quote Kahoot every month? 

SIROVY: Well, it was different every month. So one time it was like pop culture another time it was like Daily history. Yeah.

ROESSLER: The Halloween.

WHITE: One time it was Halloween. Me and Charlie still have beef about that to this day.

SIROVY: Care to explain? 

WHITE: Because he had a question that was, what is the worst Halloween candy? One of the options being circus peanuts. 

SIROVY: Ohh. 

WHITE: And the correct answer, according to the Kahoot, was candy corn. And I will not stand for that.

SIROVY: I love candy corn. 

WHITE: I do, too. 

ROESSLER: I also love candy corn. 

SIROVY: It gets a lot of hate for no reason. 

WHITE: No reason. 

ROESSLER: Not the pumpkin candy corn. 

SIROVY: Not the pumpkin one. 

WHITE: Absolutely not. 

SIROVY: The original. 

ROESSLER: Yes.

WHITE: Yes, but circus peanuts better than candy corn? Ridiculous statement. 

SIROVY: No. No.

WHITE: Ridiculous statement. 

SIROVY: They’re not.

ROESSLER: We spent practically an entire, like when we were meeting up for the EIC application stuff. We spent pretty much an entire meeting going over the circus peanut versus candy corn and we even pulled up like a website where we could buy it in bulk. Do you remember that? 

WHITE: I do we found out how much would cost to get like 200 pounds of circus peanuts and it was way too much. 

ROESSLER: It was way too much, but like 20 bucks you can get a decent amount.

WHITE: I think it was nuts.com. 

ROESSLER: It was nuts.com! And then Charlie was like, “yeah, this, this place is awesome”. And was just like going through the website of nuts.com. 

SIROVY: That’s so funny. I also wanted to mention before I forget that this episode is our 150th.

ROESSLER AND WHITE: Whoo!

ROESSLER: Yay!

SIROVY: Yay! I’ve been doing this for a year. So I mean I’ve put out a few myself, but we started back in like 2018. We finally got to 150. It’s exciting.

ROESSLER: What have been your favorite stories so far? 

SIROVY: My favorite story? Can I be a little biased?

WHITE: Oh, yeah. 

ROESSLER: Please.

SIROVY: I love the stories that I put out. 

ROESSLER: Has there been one in particular that you’ve really enjoyed?

SIROVY: This was like the second one that I did as an editor, but I talked with people from the Mill City and like their artists about one of their exhibits. It was like a queer history and like all the spaces in Minneapolis that were for queer people, but then they would either get like a lot of hate or they had to be secret during that time. And Iike older people now like look back on it, and they’re like “yeah I remember that being like a super fun safe place,” and I was like that is adorable. 

And it was super fun talking to the artists with that and that was like my, that was during the summer that was my second story as an editor. So, I think I did a great job on it. And I really liked it because I learned a lot and then the second one I did is the one about the meat and dairy salesroom because I found out about it and I was like why has no one told me about this before my three years here? Like, it’s incredible. Like, I can get ice cream and bacon and all that good stuff on campus from students. What? 

WHITE: All the heart desires. 

SIROVY: Yeah, Midwestern girl at heart. That’s all I want. Those have been some of my favorite stories, but stories that my reporters have put out. Kindra did one last summer about like the anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned. I thought that one was really, super important. And then this one, they literally just put it out, the marathon training story that Alex and Cece did. 

I don’t know if you guys have listened to it, but it’s super funny because Alex went to one of the marathon training classes like workout and like ran with them like an 8k. It was crazy and he was like talking in the microphone and like we put the audio in and it was super funny cause he’s like, “yeah, that was horrible, but also amazing.”

ROESSLER: Isn’t he a runner though?

SIROVY: Yeah, he said he did like running in like high school and like does workouts and stuff, so like it wasn’t horrible. But it was just super funny and like they were trying to get in contact with a professor, but that professor is in Paris scouting out the Olympic like running track like the loop.

ROESSLER: Yeah 

SIROVY: With like one of his runners. 

ROESSLER: That’s crazy. 

SIROVY: So, that one was super fun, even though they and like they just put it out. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, I know one of the people who are, who is in the marathon class.

SIROVY: You do? 

ROESSLER: Yeah, because he plays I play in the pep band for the men’s hockey and he is in the band with me and he like showed up one day and he’s like, “guys I’m super tired today.” And I’m like, “why,” and then he’s like “I ran 18 miles this morning for my class,” and I was like, “what?” Me, personally, I don’t run. So the fact that you ran 18 miles and are still standing? Crazy.

SIROVY: That’s a miracle. 

ROESSLER: And he doesn’t listen to music while he runs. He doesn’t listen to anything.

WHITE: Wow.

SIROVY: Just straight thoughts. 

ROESSLER: Just straight thoughts or I think he said he’ll like try to remember lyrics to a song. Like try to remember as much as he can and so like he had, he like plays his own songs in his head, but I was like, “good for you, man.” Like I just, I could never. 

SIROVY: You’re better than most of us. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: I think if I ran over like two miles right now, I’d end up in a hospital. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, 

SIROVY: I hate running. I refuse to. If I’m, even if I’m late for a class or I’m late for the bus, I don’t run. 

ROESSLER: I would rather run backwards than run at all. 

SIROVY: I don’t know why we had to do the mile in like middle school. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

WHITE: I’m a little confused about the running backwards thing. I’m not going to lie.

ROESSLER: I’m surprisingly good at running backwards. 

SIROVY: That’s cool.

ROESSLER: I can run really fast backwards. 

WHITE: How fast? 

ROESSLER: Really fast. 

SIROVY: Spencer, fun fact about you. Go. 

WHITE: I have a fake tooth. That’s what I use every time. 

ROESSLER: Lame. New one.

WHITE: I’m actually just like not that fun. I lead a depressing existence, and there’s nothing that interesting about me, so I don’t even know where to go with this. And I’m just deeply hurt that you guys think that, you know, my sadness is so funny. 

SIROVY: We all say that we’re sad, though.

ROESSLER: Alexis had a quote on the Kahoot that was like, “I don’t need seasons to be depressed.” I was like, mood. 

SIROVY: We are stressed out college kids. Good times. I don’t know. That’s a little bit about me. A little bit about you guys. Anything else you guys want to talk about. They’re giving me shrugs. 

ROESSLER: I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I’ve been on that Zelda grind. 

WHITE: Fair. 

ROESSLER: I don’t play enough video games. 

SIROVY: I’m the only one in my house, out of my roommates that plays video games. And so I feel weird, like, when they’re doing homework and I’m playing a video game because I’m procrastinating on my homework and they’re doing, like, mechanical engineering homework. 

ROESSLER: Oh my gosh. 

SIROVY: And I’m like, I’m just fighting a fictional monster here. 

ROESSLER: My roommates are biomedical engineers and then they’ll be, like, grinding on work and I’ll be like, doing the mini crossword and like the wordle.

SIROVY: That’s what me and Spencer and Sophia do during media law. 

WHITE: Amen. When I’m there. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: I can’t believe you don’t go as much as you do. That class stressed me out, like I always made sure to be there. 

SIROVY: It stressed me out. 

ROESSLER: Cause she doesn’t post any like, notes or anything.

WHITE: Do you want to get stressed out even more?

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Oh, don’t.

WHITE: I wrote my case brief in 45 minutes this morning, 1100 words. 

ROESSLER: This morning?

WHITE: This morning. It was due at 9:00, turn it in at 7:45. 

SIROVY: I don’t know how he did that.

ROESSLER: How did your Lavender article go last night? 

WHITE: Turned it in at like midnight. It was fine.

ROESSLER: There you go.

SIROVY: See you just always get it done. I don’t know how.

WHITE: I put myself in a pressure cooker and I make diamonds. 

ROESSLER: He goes to locked in land. 

SIROVY: That’s a good way to describe it.

WHITE: I had Noah cheerleading.

SIROVY: You got your emotional support bestie. What are you gonna do when he’s not here anymore? 

WHITE: I don’t know. I think he’s going to live in Dinkytown next year though. I think he’ll be around. 

ROESSLER: Has he found a job yet? 

WHITE: He’s working on it. He’s gotten a few leads, but who knows where those will go. 

ROESSLER: That’s my favorite question to ask Henry. “Have you found a job yet?” The answer has been no so far. 

SIROVY: “I’ve just been job hunting.” 

ROESSLER: God, I love Henry. 

WHITE: I love Henry.

SIROVY: I love Henry, too. I’m going to miss him. Who’s gonna be the opinions editor? I can’t remember.

WHITE: Claudia Garcia. 

SIROVY: How exciting! 

WHITE: Yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of depressing to pass my child off, you know, to someone else being the opinions desk. 

SIROVY: She’s gonna do a great job. 

WHITE: It’s in good hands. Yeah, Claudia’s been around for a while. She knows what she’s doing. 

SIROVY: I love that. Okay, you guys have anything else? 

WHITE: I want to apologize to Amelia for being so adversarial today. 

ROESSLER: I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

WHITE: This is just how I am all the time. That makes me feel worse almost. 

ROESSLER: It’s okay, I can take it. Yep, I bartend. Come at me with your worst.

SIROVY: Oh no, where do you bartend? 

ROESSLER: I bartend in Faribault

SIROVY: Really? 

ROESSLER: My aunt and uncle own the bar.

SIROVY: Fun.

ROESSLER: So they let me work. 

WHITE: I was about to say Faribault, Alaska, but that was.

SIROVY: No, there’s Faribault, Minnesota. 

ROESSLER: Nope.

WHITE: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Yep, that’s okay.

WHITE: I don’t even know if there is a Faribault, Alaska.

ROESSLER: Why did you think Alaska?

WHITE: I don’t know.

SIROVY: I think there is though. 

WHITE: It’s just what, I think there is, but it just, in my brain I was like in Alaska? 

SIROVY: Anyway, okay. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at [email protected] with comments, questions, or concerns. I’m Kaylie. 

WHITE: I’m Spencer. 

ROESSLER: I’m Amelia. 

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.

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  • Wendy Eilers
    May 1, 2024 at 3:42 pm

    Another very informative and FUN podcast!! Lots of great questions and answers. Loved the laughter between Spencer, Amelia and Kaylie. Congrats to Spencer and Amelia and wish the entire Daily much success in the coming year.