As an opinions editor of The Ticker, Baruch College’s independent student-run newspaper, Yelena Dzhanova’s job is to guide the students in expressing their opinions in a concise, logical and organized manner.
The job is not always easy. The writers who contribute have varying writing skills and editing a single article can take up to an hour. The issues vary from case to case, from lack of citations or improper grammar to AP Style errors. As exhausting as her job may be, at the end of the day she is still full of energy and eager to speak to her writers about the issues she comes across.
“I have a very diverse group of writers and I try not to shut anyone down,” Dzhanova said. “[The writers have] an opinion that is represented in the newspaper that otherwise we would not have had and it makes [the newspaper] more relatable to students.”
Dzhanova began training for her position as the current presidential election cycle gained pace, making her job as an Opinions Editor much more difficult. A Hillary Clinton supporter, the most important element of her job is to constantly monitor her actions to make sure that every political belief is represented in her section, even it differs from her own.
Dzhanova’s interest in writing grew when she was still a student in Townsend Harris High School, Queens, where she worked as the Editor in Chief of her school newspaper, The Classic. Upon entering college, she joined Encounters, Baruch’s literary publication, and The Ticker, where she contributed to the opinions section on a weekly basis. After consistently contributing to the section for a semester, she was picked out by Gabriel Marrero, her predecessor, to become the next Opinions Editor. She has held the position since May 2016.
During a typical production week, her first task is to come up with a list of topics to send to her writers. This process, Dzhanova explains, has a major influence on what opinions get published in the paper.
“Sometimes I try to target certain people whose values differ from the traditional values that we get,” Dzhanova said. “When we do topic emails, I try to suggest to a certain writer to pick up a certain article just because I feel like they would be interested in it or just because it would bring a new perspective to it.”
While writers can pitch ideas for stories, only one writer reached out to her with the intent to write about the elections this semester. She explained that this is because of a ban that the previous editor set when she was still training, which prohibited writers from writing about the presidential elections. Prior to the ban, Marrero got at least one request per week.
However, writers can still share their political views in Politicker, a column dedicated to expressing one’s political views on a topic recently covered in news.
Despite her efforts, Dzhanova acknowledges that there is a clear political preference among her writers.
“Of course the Opinions section seems to lean more toward the liberal side, but I do attribute that to the fact that we do live in this metropolis of an area where different views are tolerated,” Dzhanova said. “We do try to get more traditional perspectives and more conservative perspectives, but it doesn’t really work out too evenly split.”
After Dzhanova receives the articles from her writers, she has to edit them before they get passed on to copy editors. This is Dzhanova’s most difficult job, as she has to make sure that the writer’s opinion is preserved and not influenced by her own views while making sure that the reader will be able to follow the writer’s argument.
“I abide by a personal rule in which I try not to touch the opinion at all. I just edit for fact-checking and copy editing. If I do see an opinion that I particularly don’t agree with, I kind of grumble to myself and say, ‘grrrr.’ So I’m one of those people. It’s a very internal thought, I would never express that out loud, I’d never say who I said that about or I’d never tell that to the writer if I’m in a meeting,” Dzhanova said.
Learning how much she could edit before the writer’s voice was lost was the most difficult part of Dzhanova’s training as a section editor. Her training was even more difficult for her because, at the time, she was preparing for her summer internship with the Democratic National Committee, where she helped raise funds for the Hillary Clinton’s campaign. While she did not receive any emails written by supporters of Donald Trump, she did receive emails from people who wrote about Gary Johnson and Rand Paul. In the end, she likes to thinks that the election had a major influence on her as an editor.
“I’ve become more cognizant of the different sides of the election. I’ve become more hesitant to include content regarding the political nature of elections since many people seem to have the same complaints when it comes to representing their views and qualms with the system. I’ve become more sensitive to opinions that are not similar to mine,” Dzhanova said.