Hannah Pinski was selected to serve as The Daily Iowan’s next executive editor for the 2022-23 school year on Monday night. Pinski is the first Asian American and woman of color to serve as the DI’s executive editor. 

Pinski is a third-year student double majoring in journalism and mass communication and music with a minor in political science. She has been writing for the DI since her freshman year. She currently serves as the Opinions and Amplify editor. 

Pinski said she decided to apply for executive editor after observing those before her at the DI and their paths. She said she wanted to follow in their footsteps and inspire others like they inspired her. Pinski said she is grateful for the opportunities the DI has given her. 

“I decided to get involved with the DI because I wanted to give reporting and the news industry a try and I just fell in love with it throughout my time here,” Pinski said. 

During her time writing for the DI, she said she learned how to be adaptable. 

“I also learned the importance of journalism and why storytelling has such a powerful impact to the community as well as the values of democracy,” Pinski said. 

Reporting on difficult topics and serving as a mentor for the DI as a whole are Pinski’s greatest accomplishments, she said.

“I would say writing-wise my piece on sexual misconduct and reporting that was something I’ve worked on for I think about eight months,” she said. “… It’s one of the things I am most proud of in my journalism work that I’ve accomplished.”

Pinski will fill the role currently held by Caleb McCullough. McCullough said Pinski has been a great editor over the years and hopes she will continue to build upon what the DI has created in its 154 years of publishing. 

“She’s brought a huge focus to diversity, equity and inclusion to both the Amplify section and the DI as a whole with her role on the DEI board, and with the community chats that she has taken over organizing and hosting after those were started last year,” McCullough said. “I hope that she takes that role and creates a lot of great content and papers.”

McCullough said his advice to Pinski would be to create a strong team around her. 

“I encourage her to build a good team of editors around her and rely on them when needed and make a great editorial team as a whole,” McCullough said. 

Student Publications Inc. selected Pinski after interviewing her Monday night. Melissa Tully, vice chair of the board and University of Iowa journalism professor, said she chose Pinski because of her experience and her vision for the paper.

“I was really impressed with Hannah,” she said. “Both her vision for The Daily Iowan also just the kinds of stories that she’s already told and her commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Jason Brummond, the DI’s publisher, said he thinks Pinski is ready to take the helm. 

“I was impressed with her vision for the paper, but she’s also very organized and very detail oriented, so I think she’s really ready for this next step,”  Brummond said.

Brummond hopes Pinski can foster an environment of learning that the paper is known for and bring staff together as the publication returns to conduct business in person. 

“This grand reopening of the newsroom and bringing people back together, I think Hannah is going to be a good fit to really kind of foster that learning environment that the DI is known for,” Brummond said. 

For the upcoming school year, Pinski said she hopes to bring the staff together to produce a great print paper and high quality journalism to the Iowa City community while also diversifying the newsroom. 

“I would love … to be able to bring a variety of perspectives and identities and keep working on making the DI a more inclusive environment, and also providing more longform, enterprise stories for he print paper and have that aspect of in-depth reporting,” Pinski said.