The Daily Orange Board of Directors is tasked with guiding the news organization through financial and strategic decisions to ensure its success and longevity.

In August, The D.O. board added five new alumni members to its ranks. (See more about the board here.) The new members are working to sustain The Daily Orange, with weekly fundraising meetings and discussions about long-term financial planning.

Get to know the new members, who shared memories of their time at The D.O. and what they hope to accomplish on the board.

Dave Curtis (’00)

Dave Curtis works as the director of advancement at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and lives in West Roxbury. While at The D.O., he worked as sports editor, asst. sports editor and asst. copy editor.

What is your favorite memory of working at The Daily Orange?

How much fun I had. I remember laughing every day, over and over, for myriad reasons. And I made a few friends I still hold close today. The attempt at journalism was simply a conduit for all that.

Why did you decide to join the Board of Directors?

Dave Levinthal kept asking, and eventually I said yes. Hopefully, my background in fundraising can be helpful for the board as The Daily Orange continues to grow and support the staff.

What do you hope to accomplish as a board member?

My biggest goal is to help make sure The D.O. staff can focus on producing and presenting fantastic content way more than it focuses on finances.

What do you wish fellow alumni knew about The D.O. in 2020?

That we need your help! Like most other media, The D.O.’s business model is changing. Alumni in a position to support us as donors can make a huge difference as this transformation continues.

Stephen Dockery (’10)

Stephen Dockery is a lawyer who lives in Houston, Texas. He served as editor-in-chief at The D.O. from 2008-09 before graduating from SU in 2010.

What is your favorite memory of working at The Daily Orange?

Trying to read “The Art of War” out loud at a Sunday meeting.

Why did you decide to join the Board of Directors?

Two reasons: No 1. The Daily Orange is essential for developing the best journalists in the country in a time when we desperately need good journalism. No. 2. The Daily Orange taught me so much and let me pursue my dreams, and I want to help the new generations continue to have that opportunity.

What do you hope to accomplish as a board member?

Keep the newspaper on solid financial ground and expand the resources for the paper.

What do you wish fellow alumni knew about The D.O. in 2020?

The paper has incredible leadership and talent and needs alumni support!

Stacy Fernández (’19)

Stacy Fernández is a breaking news reporter at The Texas Tribune, where she is also covering education for the next few months. It’s her first job since graduating from SU. Fernández served as feature editor, asst. feature editor, and asst. news editor. She lives in Austin, Texas.

What is your favorite memory of working at The Daily Orange?

What sticks out to me is how I felt most nights at the paper. There were plenty of days when I was stressed about going to production, but once we were all there, almost every night broke out into laughter at some point. And when I was head editor of my section there was a lot of dancing toward the end of the night (admittedly, it was mostly me).

Why did you decide to join the Board of Directors?

When Casey (Darnell, editor-in-chief) reached out I was apprehensive. The D.O. is historically (and in my personal experience) super homogenous — read cis, straight, able-bodied and very white — and needs to continue improving how it covers underrepresented communities. I did my part to improve this when I was at The D.O. and as a head editor, but being part of decision making on the board seemed like a chance to continue that impact. You also have to trust the students running things to prioritize these changes. In my time at SU, Casey consistently showed a deep care for these issues and more importantly, actively worked to improve them. With him as EIC it seemed like an impactful time to join the board.

What do you hope to accomplish as a board member?

In the short term, I hope to be part of establishing a mentorship program for The D.O.’s students of color and helping us become financially stable.

Long term, my goal is to increase pay for staff and start paying contributors. This is also my contribution to shaping a news landscape that is equitable, representative of the communities it covers and that has a pipeline for people in historically marginalized communities — specifically Black people and other people of color — to have decision-making power. Part of that growth starts at the university level.

What do you wish fellow alumni knew about The D.O. in 2020?

If there are things about The D.O. that you wish were different when you were there, you still have a chance to improve them by reaching out to be a mentor/resource for students or joining the advisory board.

Also, you can now support the paper (that probably helped you get many of the skills you use now) with an automatic monthly donation!

Meredith Goldstein (’99)

Meredith Goldstein, who was editor-in-chief while at The D.O., works as a features writer and relationship advice columnist at The Boston Globe. Her column, “Love Letters,” has a companion podcast. She resides in Boston.

What is your favorite memory of working at The Daily Orange?

The collaborative work space. Really, it was the place where I learned how to be in a room where everyone had a passion for the same thing. Sometimes that passion led to debate, but you never doubted that everyone cared. Also, one or two times I got to drive the massive delivery van. I felt very powerful.

Why did you decide to join the Board of Directors?

Frankly, the request came at a time when I realized I wanted to make it easier for young journalists to find a place in the professional world. By working with The D.O., I can help the organization thrive, which means there will be a great group of journalists who can come to places like the Globe (selfish, I know). I also felt like I was missing out on knowing a group of incredible young people who are far savvier than we were back in the day (we barely even had an internet connection).

What do you hope to accomplish as a board member?

I want to get the paper more money. I want to help connect students to professional people so everyone can be employed. I also want to make it accessible (financially) to work at The D.O. If you can’t afford to work there because it doesn’t pay enough, The D.O. becomes what too many media companies have become – a place for kids with rich parents. We can’t let that happen. Compensation is key.

What do you wish fellow alumni knew about The D.O. in 2020?

I think that older graduates sometimes assume that The D.O. is as we left it – simply a paper (not a website) full of ads, everyone’s playing ping pong in the basement, etc. (Not that there’s anything wrong with ping pong.) But the current students are taking on all of the challenges that larger media companies face every day. They have to be faster, smarter, more dedicated … we should be helping them as much as we possibly can.

Seema Mehta (’98)

Seema Mehta is a political reporter with the Los Angeles Times, where she is in the midst of covering her fourth presidential campaign. While attending Syracuse University, she worked at The D.O. for four years as a staff writer. Mehta spent the 2018-19 academic year as a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan and lives in Long Beach, California.

What is your favorite memory of working at The Daily Orange?

 The main reason I love The D.O. is that I had the opportunity to write distinctive stories that allowed me to build my career and land prominent internships around the country, including at The Washington Post and the Associated Press. Some of the high-profile stories I covered as a student included a missing SU student who was found more than a year later chopped up in bits in her ex-boyfriend’s house, racial discrimination against Asian American students at the Denny’s on Erie Boulevard and a famous professor/author’s sexual harassment of a grad student that led to major schisms in SU’s creative-writing MFA program that took years to mend. Then there were the fun times – covering Marshall Street in the aftermath of the Orange winning the Final Four in 1996, saying inappropriate things that were memorialized on The D.O.’s walls until it moved. Too many fond memories to count.

Why did you decide to join the Board of Directors?

I was honored to be asked to join The D.O.’s Board of Directors because the paper meant so much to my college experience, and I believe my work there was integral to launching my career. It’s lovely to be able to give back.

What do you hope to accomplish as a board member?

In the immortal words of Wyclef Jean, “Dolla dolla bill y’all.” In all seriousness, I hope to help ramp up fundraising so the paper can not only survive but thrive – and remain independent of the university.

What do you wish fellow alumni knew about The D.O. in 2020?

That the paper is one of the few college papers that remains truly independent. That the advertising hits we’ve all seen at our local papers are exponentially worse at a college paper that doesn’t have paid subscribers. That The Daily Orange is the only paper really covering Syracuse – no offense to Syracuse.com and Advance Publications (I wish the city still had the three newspapers it did when I was a student. But quite frankly, The D.O. is the most vibrant source of news in the city and should position itself that way). That if we don’t raise enough money, the paper is ultimately going to go under or be forced to become an arm of the university.

Interested in getting more involved with The Daily Orange as an alum? Want to learn more about our new advisory board? Email us at alumni@dailyorange.com.

Published on September 14, 2020 at 9:14 pm

Contact Amy: abnakamu@syr.edu