Bradley Saacks runs for Daily Tar Heel editor-in-chief

The Daily Tar Heel staffers closest to junior Bradley Saacks know him for not only his snark and humor, but also his visions for the paper. Now, Saacks is ready to implement those visions if chosen to be the paper’s 2015-16 editor-in-chief.

“I love this paper,” said Saacks, The Daily Tar Heel’s university desk editor. “But in my time as a desk editor here, and just in my time leading our main coverage area, I just noticed some places where we can do better and expand.”

Saacks started working for The Daily Tar Heel in his sophomore year, and he dove in as quickly as he could. Saacks served as the summer university desk editor in 2014.

“It’s definitely not the traditional ‘love it as a staff writer, apply to be assistant, was the outstanding assistant who applied to be desk editor,’” he said. “It was more like ‘decent staff writer who had fun as the summer desk editor and then decided to do it for a year’ and just dove all the way into it. It was a much more accelerated learning curve.”

As university editor, Saacks covered the findings of the Wainstein report, which was released in October, and oversaw months of continuous coverage on the report.

Saacks, a journalism major and Hispanic studies minor, wants to see The Daily Tar Heel become a news outlet that not only attracts print reporters but also broadcast journalists, multimedia journalists and non-journalism majors.

Saacks’ platform calls for more newsroom diversity. His plan is modeled after the National Football League’s head coach hiring process: Every time there is a job opening, employers must interview at least one minority candidate.

Similarly, Saacks would require all editors to interview at least one minority candidate.

“It’s keeping (minority students) here and making them realize that it’s a paper that not only wants their opinions, but needs it,” he said.

Senior Amanda Albright, the paper’s projects and investigations leader, hired Saacks when she was university editor. She said Saacks has been willing to learn about his subject and the paper from day one.

“You just notice people like that from the get-go,” she said. “By the end of the school year, I felt like I could assign him anything, and I could trust him to do that.”

Journalism lecturer John Robinson has known Saacks since fall 2013, when Saacks enrolled in Robinson’s newswriting course.

And when Robinson, former editor of The News & Record in Greensboro, thinks of the qualities a daily newspaper editor should have, he thinks of someone who is aggressive, who knows how to chase a story and treat people well.

But Robinson also thinks of someone who is funny.

“His sense of humor seems similar to my sense of humor in that it’s kind of snarky and a little bit self-deprecating,” he said. “You need to have a sense of humor to be a decent editor or else reporters and copy editors will drive you nuts.”

Sophomore Sara Salinas, a university reporter, was hired in the same semester as Saacks, but she says she sometimes forgets that fact.

“It’s been honestly kind of rapid pace with Bradley,” she said. “I swear I just blinked, and he’s doing these incredible things.”

arts@dailytarheel.com