With this being the first issue of the 2022-2023 academic year, you may notice quite a few changes at the Muleskinner. First off, there’s new leadership. The Muleskinner said goodbye to former Managing Editor Bethany Spitzmiller when she graduated in May 2022. I am honored to have been chosen to take on her responsibilities at the Muleskinner under a slightly different title, Editor-in-Chief.
Before taking on this position I was the Editor-in-Chief at Truman State University’s student-run newspaper. While I will always be a bulldog at heart, I am excited to bring new ideas into the Muleskinner and help our staff accomplish some of their goals. My goal at the Muleskinner, besides keeping the lights on, is to support both my staff and our readers. You, the reader, are the reason we teach our reporters about news gathering, ethics and fact checking. At the Muleskinner, we seek to not only provide a learning lab for students to get real-world journalism experience, but we seek to keep the local community informed and entertained.

This publication has been around since 1878, and throughout its history many changes have been made to the way we produce and distribute news. While I want to build upon the foundation that past Muleskinner staffers have worked so hard to curate, I want to continue the upward trend the Muleskinner is on, constantly improving. We have heard from our readers and our reporters, there is a desire for more multimedia content.
During my time at Truman, I chaired a Media Board that organized multimedia coverage, from podcasts to print media. There have already been students who have expressed interest in starting a Muleskinner podcast, and creating more online components to our publication. To stay up to date on all the great video and other online content, go to MuleskinnerNews.com.
Already at the Muleskinner, there have been some amazing victories. We have recruited a passionate staff, at numbers we haven’t seen in years. Our Editorial Leadership team has already started training and just welcomed three new members right before our print issue. I am so excited for what is to come at the Muleskinner and you should be too. With the expansion of our content into more multimedia, there is really exciting content to come this year.