As the new semester of Fall 2024 begins at College of the Sequoias, the Campus Journal student newspaper welcomes a new Editor-in-Chief, Toby Shirk.

Stepping into the role of Editor-in-Chief, Shirk begins his second semester of Media Practicum. Last semester, Shirk was a profile writer and also trained under the previous Editor-in-Chief. As he completed his training, Shirk was promoted for the Fall 2024 semester. This is Shirk’s second year at COS, and he will be graduating in the upcoming spring.

As the new Editor-in-Chief, Shirk hopes to implement the use of the studio on campus to focus more on the broadcasting aspect of Journalism. He says, “I’m really excited for us having access to the studio so we can start getting students into doing more broadcast-related stuff. I would say, I don’t know, maybe not most, but a lot of students want to get into the video aspect of it.”

Shirk also described main responsibilities as Editor-in-Chief, “Basically editing, making sure that people are on top of their stories and have sources to work with. I don’t ever want anybody feeling like they don’t have stuff to write about because I think what’s fun about Journalism is that you can always find stories.”

He continued, “I make tons of mistakes in my writing… I don’t want you guys to ever feel like I’m judging your writing. I love reading what you come up with, and I love knowing what you find interesting.” There is no need to stress over turning in our stories to Shirk. It is common for Journalism students to stress over other people reading their work, but Shirk isn’t judging us at all.

He mentions that one of his memorable profile articles was with Professor Aaron Rothkopf.

Now that the Campus Journal has a new Editor-in-Chief, Shirk shared some encouraging words: “I just hope that everyone has a good semester, and continues reading our student’s work.”