In an article published April 2, headlined “Understanding the Editorial Board,” Editor-in-Chief of The**Stanford Daily Kamil Dada and the current Daily Editorial Board Chair Andrew Valencia diverged from an ongoing *Daily *policy and released the names of all of its editorial board members. The announcement comes days before the board publishes a much-coveted endorsement of an executive slate, which has weighed heavily on past ASSU elections.
As stated by the article, Tiq Chapa ’10, Ishan Nath ’12, Ashley Artmann ’12, Cameron Drake ’10, Ana Diaz-Hernandez ’11, and current Chair Andrew Valencia ’10 currently comprise the board’s six-member team.
These six are divided into three former Daily writers or editors and three members of the Stanford community not affiliated with the Daily but selected by the editor-in-chief and the editorial board chair. In addition to its executive endorsement, the board authors editorials on a host of issues, which are printed in every edition of the paper.
The editorial board operates separately from the management of the paper, and its opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily’s writers or management. “In addition to clarifying what the Editorial Board is, we also wish to reiterate what the Editorial Board is not–the Editorial Board does not serve as an editorial extension of The Stanford Daily News section, nor any other part of the newspaper’s organization,” states the article.
Notably, the article reveals that Chapa and Nath, will not take part in the board’s executive endorsement decision this year “due to conflicts of interest with other areas of the election.” Chapa is a former ASSU senate chair and Nath is president of the International Development Exchange at Stanford (IDEAS), a member of the Green Alliance for Innovative Action (GAIA), which also endorses executive candidates. Diaz-Hernandez, who served as a senator during Chapa’s tenure as Senate chair, did take part in the editorial board’s decision.
The* Daily* has for its past two volumes refused requests by the Review to release the individual names of editorial board members, citing a desire to have the board reflect a single, unified voice of the community. In a recent email to the Review, Dada wrote, “…editorial board chairs feel strongly that editorial board members should maintain their anonymity.”
In September 2008, the Daily did publicize the members of its editorial board. In an article similar to the one printed April 2 entitled “What is the edit board?,” the Daily explained how the editorial board functions in addition to printing short biographies of all of its members.
The New York**Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the LA Times all make editorial board information public. Many college newspapers do, too — the Daily Princetonian is just one example.
Discussing the executive endorsement, the Daily’s most recent article concludes, “The Stanford community can be assured that the Editorial Board and The**Stanford Daily organization have taken measures necessary to ensure that each of the four slates [that submitted an application for the Daily’s endorsement] is given fair and unbiased consideration. The final decision of which slate the board will endorse will be made with only the greatest benefit of the Stanford community in mind.”