If someone had asked me on my first day at Penn if I’d eventually be the editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian, I would’ve laughed.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew I wanted to join the DP. I started as a summer reporter before my first year. Looking back, maybe that eagerness should’ve told me something. But when I stepped on campus for the first time, my focus was elsewhere — after all, someone who’d never written anything truly serious for her high school newspaper could never dream of being more than a beat reporter for the DP, right?
Wrong.
Throughout my first year as a reporter, I learned and grew at every turn — literally, when I went to the office for my first in-person edit and got lost trying to find the Blue Room. A year later, I found myself covering the unprecedented resignation of Penn’s president, realizing that no matter how unqualified I felt, we had a job to do.
My time at the DP is marked by the people who believed in me. The ones who pushed me to take the next step, who reassured me when I questioned my abilities. The ones who embodied leadership, who showed me what student journalism could be. With their support, I ran for city desk editor, jumping at the chance to lead a small fraction of coverage. I discovered my love for truly community-focused reporting, uplifting historic unionization efforts and unearthing Penn’s ties to the city around us.
I learned very early in my DP career that student journalists hold an immense amount of power. We tell stories that nobody else can. We have a front-row seat to Penn’s history, and it is our job to make sure everyone else understands what we live every day.
Penn’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began the day before opening night of my sophomore spring musical. That weekend, I split my time between College Green and the Harold Prince Theatre, checking Slack every moment I had backstage and sprinting to Houston Hall to help file live updates on the campus unrest between shows. I will always remember those weeks of minimal sleep, even less schoolwork, and countless hours in our Van Pelt-Dietrich Library “war room.”
That’s when I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could do this. I trekked up and down Locust Walk to cover countless protests and counterprotests, stood beside reporters from CNN and The Philadelphia Inquirer during impromptu press conferences, and hitched a ride back to campus with a photographer from The New York Times after rushing to the police station to cover students’ arrests when the encampment was swept. Somewhere in there, I took my finals.
I felt like a real journalist. And I really loved that feeling. I loved knowing that the work I was doing was making a difference. I kept pushing, digging further into my beloved campus union beat and standing my ground in front of administrators when they questioned the motives behind our reporting. I loved it all. And so, even as my doubts returned, I began wrestling with what felt like a monumental decision: stick to what felt safe, or take a leap and run for board.
I leapt. And somehow, I landed on my feet.
My life went from being defined by rehearsals and tech weeks to production nights, storylists, and deadlines. I went from memorizing my next cues to working tirelessly to understand the inner workings of our University — and of a 142-year-old student newspaper.
When I was elected editor-in-chief, I was terrified. A 2:45 a.m. phone call from someone whose shoes I could barely dream of filling had just handed me an immense responsibility. It took me longer than it should have to realize that I could manage it.
But I did manage it. I navigated a whirlwind of executive orders, funding freezes, and federal scrutiny, standing up for student journalism through it all. I stayed up editing sports stories that garnered national attention, editorials that sparked discourse, and investigations that reminded me of the power we hold.
There were certainly moments when things went wrong — moments that, to this day, I wish I could erase. But journalism has taught me that no matter how bad something feels, you never want to erase the record. Those moments are what make your story complete.
You learn how to solve problems you never could have dreamed about when you wrote your first story. You strive to make your writers’ and editors’ work shine, wanting nothing more than to show readers the fruits of the tireless labor you see in the office each night. You learn how to support every single person you can, knowing your job is to ensure that nobody feels like they’re doing this alone.
Those are the moments when you learn how to lead. You learn how to stand up for your work, your staff, and even yourself. You learn what it really means to be a journalist.
I’ve always heard that the people make the place, and the DP is no different. There are friendships I would not have gotten through my time as editor-in-chief without, and for which I’m forever, always, deeply grateful. To the ones who believed in me, who pushed me, who trusted me, who had my back, who let me cry to them (even oceans away), and who answered every Slack I sent no matter how trivial, thank you. To my lin, thank you for brightening my days, and I cannot wait to keep watching you grow. To my roommates, past and present, thank you for reassuring me when I needed it most, for helping me see what really mattered, and for reminding me that there was life — and more than one window — outside 4015 Walnut St.
There were moments at the DP when I questioned everything. But I’m proud of my work, from my first day as a summer general assignments reporter to my last as editor-in-chief, and I’m grateful for every editor who believed in what we created together and every community member who recognized that our work mattered. After three and a half years, I walked out of the Pink Palace for the last time smarter, better, and stronger. And for that, I will always be grateful.
EMILY SCOLNICK is a College senior studying history, communication, and journalism from Wayne, Pa. She served as DP editor-in-chief on the 141st Board of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. Previously, she served as city desk editor. Her email is emilysco@sas.upenn.edu.
